Overview

“Come right out with the English, Peter. Don’t even think in your own language. English, all the time!”

In 1965, a researcher lived with a dolphin for ten weeks to try and teach him to speak English – part of a NASA-funded research project into human-animal communication. Condemned by the wider scientific community as an elaborate circus trick, the experiment remains a controversial episode in the space race between the two Cold War superpowers.

Inspired by Margaret’s time with Peter in the Dolphin House, TANK will explore the politics of language, the power of culture – and what happens when you inject a cetacean with LSD.