A body that is reflecting the strangeness of touch

In the Azores, marine biologists lie on their stomachs on the ground, twisting and contorting themselves to dig their arms deep into the ground, trying to grow another centimetre to extract seabirds, shearwaters, from their deep burrows. The young birds spend their first months in these dark burrows, without having fully developed their vision. When the young shearwaters fly for the first time, they head out for the sea, but artificial lights disorient them. They fly towards cities, towards the light, eventually crashing into obstacles. Meanwhile, in Lisbon, we hear the voices of three women describing the movements of the birds and the biologists, each exploring the contours of communication: one struggles with a new language, while the second searches her memory to translate the movements into words for the third, who fills the gaps with descriptions and sounds.

Fragments of sounds, films and conversations are intertwined through Ellie Ga's narrative, told live by the artist in a mixture of English and Portuguese, with Portuguese subtitles.