Diana Thater: "Delphine" | ART21 "Exclusive"

[Former Los Angeles Zoo]

I always thought this might have been
where they kept the lions.

In the '60s and '70s, my parents took us to zoos.

But they always made me sad.

You know, I had a friend who took his daughter
to the zoo,

and I said,
"Why would you do such a thing,"

"and show someone--a child--"

"That this is the way we behave toward nature."

And he said,
"Well, where else will she see a giraffe?"

And I said,
"Well, maybe she shouldn't see a giraffe!"

Maybe the only place you should see a giraffe

is on National Geographic.

And maybe that's why we have National Geographic,
you know?

Watch nature documentaries.

Ric O'Barry always says that it makes them
akin to psychotic

when you put an animal in a space like this--

That has a little bit of that, sort of,
Chernobyl-esque quality to it.

But that's a…

It’s a different kind of disaster.

You know, this isn’t...
This is ongoing.

My life as an activist is one that is anti-captivity.

["Welcome to Taiji"]
[Post-production and editing: Diana Thater]

When I worked for the Dolphin Project--
Ric O’Barry--

all of the work was to stop the capture and
sale of cetaceans

to marine parks and animal amusements.

I haven't done any activist work since 2010.

And I sort of feel a loss of that in my life.

["Delphine" (1999)]

I don't put the politics of activism and the
politics of my work together.

I think it makes a muddle.

My life as an artist is a different one.

The politics are much more subtle.

When you make films about the natural world
that aren't narrative

that's the problem--

[LAUGHS] there's no narrative.

So what are you editing for?

Can you just put one image of a dolphin
after another image of a dolphin?

They're all great.

You film dolphins,
every image you get is fantastic.

You have to figure out ways to put images
next to one another

and that requires that you think about time.

How do you keep throwing the viewer
back at themselves

so they don't get lost in something?

I don't want people to lose themselves
in a story.

Let's say an installation like "Delphine,"

everything is trying to push or foreground--

or make possible--

wherein you can see a dolphin spinning underwater

and you can almost feel it.

And that's the kind of, sort of, sympathetic
response I'm interested in.

People do often talk about pleasure,

about beauty in the work.

Once you're in that, sort of, ecstatic place

or that place where you're contemplating beauty,

I think you are fully within yourself.

I want you to be conscious of your body.

I would like for humans to recognize

that they belong to a complicated
and complex ecosystem

that includes all kinds of other beings.

Just because we can't communicate verbally

doesn't mean we can't
communicate in other ways.

And so I want to form a possible model
for communication

through this, kind of,
sympathetic bodily adventure.

It's really important to me to be able to
do something

to, sort of, better the conditions of animals,

but also to better the conditions of humanity.