TOTO TO TOTORO; Can talking animals save the world?

YEAR: 2021
MEDIUM: Publication, 25 x 17.5cm, 197pp
FUNDING: Leverhulme Trust

Post-apocalyptic giant insects, singing mice, poetry by a cockroach, shapeshifting Tricksters, a parrot who speaks Portuguese, a dog who speaks Tagalog, rivers with legal personhood and a scarecrow who was painted into existence by a farmer.

TOTO TO TOTORO: Can talking animals save the world? is an ecological treatise that probes the importance of other-than-human storytelling to form more sustainable ways of planetary being. Toto, the trusty canine from The Wizard of Oz series, guides us through a series of encounters of the animal kind through interviews, poetry, letters and essays by select talking animals from literary and filmic worlds. Through these conversations the talking animals ask if they might be the unexpected key to rupturing the anthropocentric nature-culture divide. And if so, is this enough to save the world?

Read first chapter in SWARM Magazine here.

Credits
Produced for: Graduation thesis for MA Artistic Research, The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
Designed by: Renata Mirón.
Supervised by: Jasper Coppes.
Proofread by: Leonie Brandner.