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Part 6 of the Near Dwellers series Near Dwellers as Friends At Bothkinds Project Space, Vancouver, British Columbia October 1 - December 31, 2025 Setting the stage for the autumn exhibition in Vancouver, Heather C. Ohanesen joined us on March 10, 2025 as our online discussant for this node of Near Dwellers. Details right/below. Audience submissions to the participatory component of Near Dwellers as Friends will be shared online, on this page, and at Bothkinds. Deadline September 15, 2025. Details right/below. Please email us with entries for the participatory project as well as questions at [email protected]. |
If you press me to say why I loved him, I cannot reply except by saying:
‘Because it was he, because it was I.’ — Michel de Montaigne, ‘On Friendship’, Book 1, chapter 27, Essays. Michel de Montaigne’s famous essay De l’Amitié, specifically referring to the writer’s own longtime, deep friendship with Etienne de la Boétie, ends in an aporia: after multiple attempts to frame and to understand this love, both synchronically and through the historical lens of earlier philosophers, Montaigne basically throws up his hands – ultimately, there is no explaining this shared, intoxicating bond. It exists just because; it exists in a mysterious and unfathomable point of singularity.
In animal studies and related fields in recent years, conceptualizations of relationships between other-than-humans and humans have tended to be underlaid with a simultaneously romanticising and reparative drive: the impulse is to try to recognize a greater closeness with our animal neighbors, often involving the important but potentially misleading action of de-othering, especially the case when animal rights and activism are involved. Equally, dominant narratives on social media disappointingly tend toward more simplistic and sentimental conceptions of similitude and of companionship or love. But we would benefit from a closer look at these relationships against the backdrop of both this inexplicability pointed to by Montaigne, as well as Derrida’s insistence on a relational gap and unknowability in The animal that therefore I am. As Derrida says, "[My cat] has a point of view regarding me [...] and nothing will have ever given me more food for thinking through this absolute alterity of the neighbor or of the next (-door) than these moments when I see myself seen naked under the gaze of a cat." [1] There is something then, about friendship as surprise and wonder, but also as an unnameable, and even terrifying, force that might help us to frame our rich and deep, but never untroubled, relationships with the more-than-human. In this node of Near Dwellers, we look to a re-framing of friendship with the other-than-human as something much more than closeness or a kind of straightforward interspecies bond. We want to draw attention to both the inexplicability of our interspecies ties, as well as to the fact that these ties can be agonistic: filled not only with wonder, but often with a wonder mixed with dread, fear and distance. [1] Derrida, Jacques. The Animal That Therefore I Am, Fordham University Press, 2008, p.11. Near Dwellers as Friends: a participatory componentWe invite you, our audiences, to share a remembered encounter, interaction, or experience with a ‘near dwelling’ animal in your locale: this might be a moment of close connection, or one of contention (and perhaps both at the same time). Maybe you have shared, or felt you've shared, a sense of mutual understanding. It also might be something new that you have learned from an animal ‘near dweller’. It could be something amusing, or amazing – a moment of awe.
TO CONTRIBUTE Submissions should include at least one image and/or short film, along with a short (approximately 250-1000 word) text or voice recording elaborating upon your encounter. Deadline: September 15, 2025. All submissions received will be included and will be (1) exhibited in Autumn 2025 at Bothkinds Project Space, in Vancouver, British Columbia; (2) shared and archived online on the Street Road website; and (3) published as a collection by Street Road Press. How to share your submissions with us:
Near Dwellers as Friends
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Part 1
Near Dwellers and the Sharing of Breath Sarah Le Quang Sang with Spirit of Saigon August 4 – September 30, 2023 Part 2 Near Dwellers as Legal Beings Fawn Daphne Plessner Susanna Kamon October 13 – December 30, 2023 Part 3 Near Dwellers as Creative Collaborators Julie Andreyev Ruth K. Burke February 2 – April 13, 2024 |
Part 4
Near Dwellers as Urbanites Jesse Garbe Doug La Fortune May 3, 2024 – extended to January 31, 2025 Part 5 Near Dwellers as Roadkill Lou Florence Februay 15 – May 31, 2025 Part 6 Near Dwellers as Friends At Bothkinds Project Space Vancouver, British Columbia October 1 - December 31, 2025 Part 7 Near Dwellers as Indwellers At Bothkinds Project Space Vancouver, British Columbia October 1 - December 31, 2025 |