This research explores the possibility of telling stories situated inside animal experimental laboratories. It is part of a wider movement in the Humanities, wishing to de-anthropocentricise the narratives of our relationships with other-than-human beings (i.e., to improve the usual dramaturgy with "Man" as the main protagonist). By looking at the scientific, technical and material aspects that are important in the experimental use of our companion species, I hope to light up and to relate (illustrate) these beings that are discreetly contributing to our subsistence.

The proposal concerns the shifts occasioned by a change of animal model (e.g. from mice to sheep). In laboratory practices, the change of species is exceptional and has major methodological, epistemological and relational consequences. The research employs ethnographic tools to observe characters, interactions, and settings accurately. However, this empirical commitment will not be taken for granted: laboratories are difficult places to access. The project will involve negotiating the use of observation (and dissemination) tools: questioning the role and impact of audio-visual recordings and/or field notebooks.

Images and stories from inside animal experimentation laboratories are scarce —my artistic practice is concerned with the requirements of the missing images, worried about how to shape and recount them. The hypothesis is that by immersing myself in the work of specialists who are engaged with animals, it will be possible to put these experiments into narrative and to explore ways of rendering them with care. This will involve working on contiguity, modes of visualization and spatialization to elaborate ellipses. In addition to documentation (notes, drawings, photos, sound, videos), I plan to work on reconstructions (object theatre, models) based on scientific documents. "Model species, companion species" will investigate manners to exhibit practices and relationships that are usually opaque.