It’s no secret that artistic research takes place at the Academy of Theatre and Dance (ATD), but what does it actually entail? In this interview, part 26 in a series, we take a peek behind the scenes, in conversation with Toni Kritzer, a Theatre Directing graduate who conducts research into illness and ecosystems. They also tend to an ever-expanding garden on the roof of the school –The Garden Project , in collaboration with the Lectorate.

Part 26: On Loving a Slug

Green is the colour of the rooftop terrace of the ATD. On what just two years ago was an expanse of grey paving stones, there are no fewer than thirty planting beds, with an apple tree and fig tree. The plan had been gestating for decades, but it was only in 2023 that Toni Kritzer was part of making it happen. As a communal garden, it is actively supported by many people, and nurtured through countless ‘gestures of care’. ‘It’s all about the little gestures,’ explains Toni, ‘Like people picking a few lemon verbena leaves for tea, pouring leftover coffee onto the soil, or simply taking a moment to smell a flower.’

‘Of course, there’s heavier work to be done in the garden, too,’ Toni continues, ‘Like making new beds and, as we did last June, installing the irrigation system that meant the garden made it through the summer in excellent form. We’ve got beans and potatoes now, and in June we had a wonderful strawberry harvest.’

Did you know anything about gardening when you started the rooftop garden?

‘Not really. What I brought to it were my embodied memories. I grew up in a remote, hilly area in southern Germany, where my parents gardened and farmed. As a child I’d pick beetles off the potato plants. Before setting up the rooftop garden I did approach experienced gardeners for advice. They were all a bit cautious about it, because it all depends on the specific location, the soil type and the weather – you never get a completely stable situation. It was interesting to me - especially in the context of the school- that their knowledge had a very different quality to what we’re used to: garden knowledge is always situated and relational.

The rooftop terrace isn’t an easy place for plants. The wind is really strong, and the sun blazes down on them. But many plants are incredibly resilient, so they keep on growing and blooming, which is wonderful. I’ve learned so much from them. They allow for a certain amount of disorder –unexpectedly appearing in cracks and crevices, claiming space that isn’t theirs according to human design. And the beautiful thing is that all of this happens collectively. In no time at all the plants multiply through the earth or scatter their seeds. They show how life creates the possibility of more life. The terrace is also teeming with insects now – they fly up to the roof or find their way there via the tree next to the school.’

Is the garden a project that’s part of your Theatre Directing studies?

‘The garden isn’t a project; it’s a living system. Things quickly become ‘projects’ in the context of art study programmes, but it would be rather cruel to speak that way about a human, an animal or a plant. I’m also not ‘the creator’ – any notion of authorship wouldn’t align with the reality of the situation. The garden is getting support from lots of people, and is affiliated with the ATD’s Sustainability platform as well as the lectorate. There are regular gatherings in the garden where everyone is welcome – that’s when we get our hands dirty. The garden is a proper meeting place. For meeting the plants and each other.’

I understand you also created a performance titled The Sick Garden.

‘Yes – now that one really is a project [laughs]. It’s a performance, a lecture, a workshop. It’s constantly mutating. A year and a half ago, my partner and I moved to a house with a large, overgrown garden. I was eager to get to work on it, because if you leave an ornamental garden to its own devices, it will turn into a monoculture. But then I got Covid, which turned into Long Covid. While my health was deteriorating rapidly, a plague of slugs devoured our young crops. I spent the summer killing every slug I could find, until a friend pointed out that perhaps I could learn something from them.

Slugs are so open, so permeable and vulnerable that it’s difficult to love them. At the same time they are so resilient. Sick and exhausted as I was, I could relate to their laboured way of moving. My life had slowed to such a sluggish pace. It was only later I discovered I wasn’t the only queer crip seeking a loving approach to slugs, UK artist Abi Palmer and other crips were as well.

I also realized how vulnerable I was myself: after all I’d got ill by just breathing in. The idea that we’re all interconnected is not just a romantic one; it’s about contagion and plagues, too. Getting healed in an instant is an illusion, and so is getting rid of all your slugs. Reality requires us to work out how to live with them. It was the fact that both my body and the garden were failing at the same time that made me start The Sick Garden as a research project looking at illness and ecosystems, and into disabled ecologies. I had to rediscover for myself what health was, what success and failure meant.'

What do you mean?

'In a garden it’s not so clear what failure and success mean for different things. With the slugs and caterpillars devouring all our young plants, they unintentionally created more space for other herbs to move in, and by the end of the summer the garden was full of butterflies. That was so beautiful. I realized I also needed to redefine failure and success for myself. In the same way as in a garden, I needed to make space in my life for decay, compost and dead wood. It does make life more complicated and ugly, but it also makes it more alive.

I think the same applies on a larger scale. The climate crisis is forcing us to get comfortable with death and decay. Our gardens and ecosystems are going to get increasingly sick in the upcoming years. Will we be able to remain present, to care for the world within ourselves and around us? I believe we can learn a lot from crip artists, who, in a sense, are leading the way in this.'

I believe The Sick Garden performance addresses this theme.

‘It does. In The Sick Garden, I use spoken text and song. I begin in my wheelchair and gradually crawl closer to the ground. In the process, I slowly transform into a slug. In the end I’m wrapped in a blanket and covered in slime, wearing a mask with tentacles.’

How do people respond to this work?

'My favourite reaction actually came from a ladybird that landed on my hand ten minutes before the end and didn’t want to fly away. I normally end the performance with a collective meditation, during which I place my hands in water. To avoid drowning the ladybird, I stopped the performance and spent the last ten minutes in conversation with the audience. I’m also deeply moved by the responses of other chronically ill people. There is something liberating in that I allow myself to lie on the ground; that I don’t have to perform health on stage.

To be so vulnerable, so permeable, is a very confronting, but also very rich experience as I am being held and cared for by my community. I’m fortunate to experience what it’s like to be deeply dependent on others – on people, animals and plants, I mean – and to be more present than ever. In hindsight, the year I started working in our overgrown garden wasn’t the year I took care of the garden; it was the year the garden took care of me. It caught me in my fall, on a bed of slime and rotting leaves – which, in a way, was quite comforting.'

(Toni leaves briefly to fetch the slug mask that Lou Seidel made for them, returns and says:)

‘It’s perfect to be having this conversation right now, at the cusp of summer and autumn. It’s a good moment to move into that space, to be truly present with death and decay.’

Interview: Hester van Hasselt