What is the difference between a human and a gull?
„The gulls are mostly white and noisy.“
„The humans are mostly rather reddish.“

Both gulls and humans are vertebrates that live on planet Earth. And that’s where the similarities end. Questions like this are a sign of anthropocentrism: humans are used to project themselves onto gulls (and non-human species in general). It doesn’t matter how similar gulls and humans are. Our bodies are so different that we will never be able to perceive the world as seagulls do. The task of humans, if we want to save the planet, is to learn to honor this otherness instead. The „gull-ness“ of gulls and the „human-ness“ of humans do not need to be compared; they are only some of the many diverse qualities our planet offers.

For centuries we have been accustomed to putting humans first. But the freedom of one species ends where the freedom of another begins. In the Anthropocene it is clear that humans have long since exceeded their freedom at the expense of other species. The performance Four Days of Closeness (text by Finnish playwright Pipsa Lonka, 2020) tries to work with humans as just one of the many species, in the spirit of the posthumanist philosophy.

We often travel to consume the otherness of gulls and their environment in pseudo-undiscovered exotic locations and dull beach resorts.

It was supposed to be just another beach vacation. One we’ve all experienced many times.

But this time, when a human gazed into the eye of the gull, the beach gazed back into him.