we read our pain like coordinates

What does it feel like to be a polluted river, a clear-cut forest, a sinking island: like bodies living with chronic pain? At the intersection of ecology and disability justice, we wander through damaged landscapes. This is a work in progress by the makers, who were previously in residence on Terschelling.

Our bodies – painful, vulnerable, beautiful – are part of ecosystems. And as the world grows sicker, so do we: in this web of interdependence, the climate crisis wounds all living beings. In an attempt at interspecies empathy, we map wounded ecologies onto our wounded bodies. How can we care for our injured ecosystems and our more-than-human kin? How can we tend to our aching bodies and minds in an age of ecological collapse? we read our pain like coordinates is a work in progress, a performative exploration that listens more than it speaks, an encounter that feels, hurts and entangles.

Over the course of three years, Oerol Festival is collaborating with the Bartiméus Fund on a programme to realise a site-specific theatre performance during Oerol 2027 – created by theatre-makers with and without disabilities. In 2025, an open call was launched, from which the plans by Dominique Stevens and Toni Kritzer were selected. Both makers were in residence with their teams this spring and present a preview of their work in progress during the festival.