The Brook


2022

For once, it is not quite sure that we as humans turn to the non-human for reasons beyond human-interest? We envision and engage in a world beyond the human or even a world without us, but paradoxically and presumably, we do so for us. In a similar vein, The Brook challenges the political and historical neutrality of this ‘us’. Certainly, no-one can escape the ecological crisis, but The Brook forces us to consider the particular situatedness of this or that human-body under threat. In ‘The Brook’, we do not see a human-body, but a woman-gendered human body. And, of this body we could ask ourselves if it is not too early to enter the realm of the non-human. Is this woman already a human? And what if this body was a black woman, or a disabled person. Would these bodies already be included in the category of human? And by extension, are the very empirical facts of environmental racism, sexism and ableism, not signs precisely thereof that certain bodies are not yet included in the category of humanity?
                                                                                                          

   Dr. Nathanja van den Heuvel


The Brook premiered on March 12th, 2022, at Dat Bolwerck in Zutphen.