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Global warming | Artwork »The Herds«: No one will be left untouched

Global warming | Artwork »The Herds«: No one will be left untouched
Making global warming concrete: A part of »The Herds« on the Makoko River near Lagos

A large procession of plywood and cardboard figures is currently traveling through Africa and Europe: giraffes, kudus, gorillas, chimpanzees, gazelles, zebras, wolves, bears, hyenas, leopards, elephants, antelopes – a total of over 600 life-size animal figures animated by puppeteers. "'The Herds' is a story about humanity in the process of losing control," says artistic director Amir Nizar Zuabi. A loss of control caused by ignorance of the consequences of industrialization and carbonization that have been known for decades.

The animals are fleeing global warming. They are running to draw attention to the climate catastrophe. They are much more concrete than "global warming," attracting thousands of enthusiastic spectators at every location and are the result of an enormous vision and a massive logistical apparatus involving hundreds of participants, partner organizations, volunteers, sponsors, and supporters from numerous countries.

The entire undertaking required years of preparation, starting with detailed studies of how the animals walk, eat, stand, and sleep, through to building models, developing cutting plans and assembly instructions, training over 1,200 puppeteers, and much more.

"The Herds" have already visited various locations: Kinshasa, Lagos, Dakar, Casablanca, Cadiz, Madrid, London, Manchester – and will continue on through numerous other cities to Trondheim, a total of approximately 20,000 kilometers, traveled from April to August 2025. Between the cities, they will be packed, shipped, unpacked, reassembled, or reproduced or recreated at the respective locations. Different animals will be added at each stop, adapted to the respective fauna. Even hedgehogs and fish are taken into consideration. "The Herds" almost came to Germany, but a German theater institution canceled the collaboration – without explanation.

The animal puppets were developed by the Ukwanda Puppets and Designs Art Collective, based at the Center for the Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The research center, the collective, and Zuabi and his team share a mission that has sent "The Herds" on its journey: In a time of indifference, governed by statistics and forecasts, in a time of slow, threatening violence associated with global warming, a violence that is now felt everywhere in Europe but still not perceived as existential, the challenge is to create a sensory experience that sensitizes and, at best, inspires action.

No one who sees "The Herds" will be left untouched by the astonishing cast, the attention to detail of the production, and the entire endeavor. It is one of the most comprehensive public performances, connecting hundreds of people across countries and continents through empathy and enthusiasm, whether as players, spectators, or other local participants. The actors are developing additional workshops and educational programs, including a website ( www.theherds.org ) with numerous suggestions for local engagement. Last but not least, there is a decarbonization certificate for cities, which in Germany, for example, has been ratified by Heidelberg.

But "The Herds" is about more than admiring the artistry. And it's also about more than drawing attention to the climate catastrophe. The main question is how they do it. Art will not invent anything to make destructive processes reversible. Art offers no "solution" to the climate problem. But art can foster what the philosopher Baruch de Spinoza called joyful passions, distinguishing them from sad passions.

Puppets, in their intermediate position between inanimate material and life, are fascinating, heightened by the fact that they are animals with whom it is easier to develop empathy. Anyone who has ever seen Robert Bresson's film "Au hazard Balthazar" (1966) will hopefully never abuse animals or other beings again. And perhaps, thanks to "The Herds," a leap to the banal fact that humans are also animals will occur.

Zuabi has already transformed puppets into ambassadors in a previous project. Since 2021, Little Amal, a nearly four-meter-tall puppet in the shape of a girl who fled Syria, has been touring various countries. She was most recently seen in Chile. Anyone who conceives such mammoth projects must believe in the power of art to make a difference.

It's probably no coincidence that two of the main participants gained their theater experience in places where art is essential, countering the brutalization of the prevailing conditions with beauty, situational forgetfulness, and lightness, even when the issues being addressed are catastrophic. Amir Nizar Zuabi was born in East Jerusalem to Jewish-Palestinian parents who, in turn, managed to escape Nazi Germany, and has performed theater in Palestinian refugee camps.

The Ukwanda Puppets and Designs Art Collective from South Africa, on the other hand, works in a country that, even after the official end of apartheid, is still deeply marked by the traces of this violent separation. In his book "Undoing Apartheid," the South African historian Premesh Lalu, who brought the art collective to the CHR in Cape Town, describes how apartheid was not just a legal apparatus that ended in 1994, but shaped everyday life down to the smallest detail and every emotion. In the form of "petty apartheid"—something like a small apartheid—this continues to block life-affirming forces and is responsible for a persistent life experience of racialized separation. However specific these historical-political contexts may be, they share something that is transferable to other contexts: a fundamental anesthetization, derived from anesthesia, that is, a numbing of the senses.

What is meant by this is an impoverishment in the register of possible experiences, an impoverishment of social cohesion and life possibilities, which are rooted in policies and their technologies that rely on division and separation. The sharp increase in hate speech on (a)social media would be another example of such a technology. "The Herds" is a way to counteract this impoverishment, to expand agency instead of producing experiences of powerlessness, to connect to something through an affirmative reference. This does not replace political analysis, but art also plays with and on other registers. "The Herds" also runs counter to these apparatuses of division.

From 27 to 29 June in London, then in Manchester, Aarhus, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Trondheim.

nd-aktuell

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