Queer Pods: Free as Whales (Queer Pods: liberə come le balene) is a performative lecture that weaves together ecofeminist theory and marine ethology to explore cetacean forms of sociality, care, and communication as models for possible worlds.
Inspired by texts such as Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology by Astrida Neimanis, and Pods: The Building Blocks of Transformative Justice & Collective Care by Mia Mingus, alongside field observations of animal behavior, we ask ourselves what we can learn from cetaceans and other marine mammals about how to live, love, and survive together on a planet in crisis.
Through accessible language and a somatic approach, the performance invites the audience to immerse themselves in an archive of gestures, sounds, and movements inspired by marine life: the collective grief of pilot whales holding vigil for their dead; the grandmother and aunt orcas caring for the calves and the most vulnerable members of the pod; the sophisticated forms of communication that travel through the waters like networks of affection and resistance.
We spoke of grief, parenting, sociality, multispecies languages, sex and pleasure beyond reproduction, migrations, and constantly fluid orientations. We learnt that there are no separate individuals, only nodes within a liquid continuum of interdependencies. “Queer Pods” is an invitation to practice forms of care and alliance that, like cetaceans, challenge the boundaries between species, genders, and ways of knowing, leading toward a shared and complex freedom.
The talk was guided by a yoga teacher that helped us foucs on our breating, as a powerful connecting element.
The project comprises workshops and a talk where animal ethology and social theory intersect and challenge mainstream narratives about relations and animals.
Curated by Dr. Alice Briola (marine biologist, cetologist, and head of the BioNet project) and independent curator Valentina Bianchi, featuring artist Ju Canon and yoga instructor Valentina Dotti.