Indian Runners are a breed of Anas platyrhynchos domesticus, the domestic duck. They stand erect like penguins and, rather than waddling, they run or “quickstep”. The Indian Runner ducks are domesticated waterfowls found on the Indonesian wetland islands of Lombok, Java and Bali where they were ‘walked’ to market and sold as egg-layers or for meat. Like many other breeds of waterfowl imported into Europe and America, the term ‘Indian’ is misleading and refers mainly to the loading port or the transport by sailing ships of the East India Company. Other misnamed geese and ducks include the African goose, the black East Indian duck and the Muscovy duck. The ducks were brought (or displaced) by imperial powers to Europe, where they were bred for eggs and feathers.

It seemed like a big intervention to re-locate the ducks in the JvE, and it made me a bit nervous at first, because the ducks felt nervous around us, and would instantly quickstep away from any human reaching proximity. They were fascinating to watch as they were all incredibly synchronised and they would perform these peculiar neck–bowing gestures in tandem as a way to communicate or digest — the reason still remains unknown to me.

I was positively surprised to see that everyone in the academy loved them and took upon the guardian ship of the ducks, letting them inside the glass house in the night and out in the morning. Artist routines combined well with the caretaking of the ducks, since there would always be someone in the academy late in the night and early in the morning. Mickey would even collect snails in the night and feed them to the ducks in the morning. Several participants and staff members told me they had missed the presence of animals and that it was a healing contribution to the JvE especially during lockdown. In that sense the ducks were important for the institutional ecosystem as well, although the rigid esteeming no animals inside the academy had to be bent in order to host them.

The ducks are excellent foragers, and after a while they had eaten most of the snails and soon started overgrazing on my plants. The overgrazing was not anticipated, so I moved them to another garden. In the new garden they had no shelter, and I decided to keep them in this garden, while ordering a high frequency device that would scare away predators, a tip from Boudewijn. The device came too late because the marten, a four-legged agile predator, had killed tree of the five ducks one night. One of the ducks had even fallen heart ripped open on top of a snail, squeezed into the soil. It was a hard sight, and I felt very guilty. I called Wim and he seemed calm as a rock with his typical “jah jah that happens”. The contrast between our reactions were remarkable, and I realised later how much more “natural” Wim’s reactions was. Later I talked to Felix and he had this theory that perhaps it was a sort of self-regulation of the ecosystem, because five ducks were in the end too many for the size of grazing area.

Boudewijn, the financial director, offered a space in his orchard for the burial of the ducks, and I could see that it had touched him as well as others, the passing of the three brothers.