Sheep Pig Goat

Hosted by the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Surrey, Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca collaborated with Arts Council England national portfolio organisation Fevered Sleep to create a new version of Sheep Pig Goat: a project exploring how well humans see animals as they really are – not as we tell ourselves they are – through a series of improvised encounters between human performers and animal spectators.

‘What would happen in a performance for animals?’ Described by the company as a ‘creative research studio’, the first iteration of Sheep Pig Goat took place in a warehouse space in London in March 2017, with an audience invited to take part as observers and dialogue partners, and the Fellow acting as a research advisor. 

The new iteration of Sheep Pig Goat took place between 3-8 February 2020 at the University of Surrey School of Veterinary Medicine. This version of the project included a series of encounters between human performers and cows, sheep and chickens, through which we investigate all the ways that humans - and other animals - see, observe, watch and attend to one another.

On 5 February 2020, Laura hosted a contextual conversation with Fevered Sleep’s artistic directors Sam Butler and David Harradine, writer Filipa Ramos and Professor of Animal Behaviour and Welfare at Scotland’s Rural College, Francoise Wemelsfelder. Visitors to the project during the residency included school children, drama students, veterinary medicine students, and academics .

“Performing knowledge as interspecies encounter: Sheep Pig Goat and the ethics of attention” - an essay by Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca on the Surrey iteration of Sheep Pig Goat will be published in a forthcoming book marking the anniversary of 25 years of Fevered Sleep.

Photographs by Malachy Luckie.