Trickster in the Capitalocene

YEAR: 2023-ongoing
MEDIUM: Workshop
FUNDING: OtherWise, Wageningen University and Stroom Den Haag

This workshop uses riddle-writing as a tool to think about extinction.

Participants are introduced to the 61 species comprising the taxidermied extinct bird collection at Naturalis Biodiversity Center through finger puppet representations. Each finger puppet is accompanied by a small card detailing snippets of information about the bird, such as their habitat or cause of extinction. You must choose a bird and write a riddle informed by this. At the end, the group will try to guess the subject of each riddle, indicating their guess by placing the bird finger puppet on the riddler’s fingers. Ten guesses and you’re up - the riddler has tricked you!

Through this game, participants are not only prompted to consider the connection between puppetry, Tricksters and riddles, but to develop more personal relationships to their chosen extinct bird. By writing a riddle about them, they are asked to think more deeply and obliquely about the bird. How can they use the Tricky language of riddles to conceal and protect the bird from being identified? And how can this way of thinking be translated into our human-animal relationships in the material world?

Credits
Developed for: OtherWise, Wageningen University.
Workshop hosted at: Page Not Found, The Hague.
Documentation photos: Alex Wight.