Und täglich grüsst das Eichhörnchen
(2020)

The office of the videocity.bs team has moved within Basel – to the St. Johanns quarter. Now it is situated on ground floor with a view into a large inner courtyard. Here, we discover the squirrels very soon: a cuddly red one, a slim, elegant brown one and a very small, delicate one. Every day they do gymnastics in the bushes, dangling on thin branches, even jumping through the air to the trunk of the tall pine tree in the neighbouring garden. On the trunk of the yew tree they love to play catch. Sometimes we also see them running across the roofs of the houses opposite or roaming the balconies full of curiosity.

We want to make their acquaintance. To make them feel more at home with us, we organize a squirrel feeder. This differs from birdfeeder houses in that the food is not kept at the bottom, otherwise the birds would eat it away instead. One side of the squirrel house has a plexiglass wall so that the food can be seen from outside. Below the flat roof there is an opening of about three centimetres. This is where they are supposed to reach in. This doesn't work right away and so we invent a learning unit: The roof can be opened, because from here the nuts are filled in. We leave it open at first. At the first visit the red squirrel balances on it until it closes. And it quickly learns, slips through the opening with its upper body and grabs its nut.

The red squirrel that can be seen in the video was our first guest. We offered him all kinds of nuts: walnuts, hazelnuts inside their shells or as kernels. Non-native nuts are their favourites: at first almonds, but soon after they declare peanuts their favourite dish. Our little guests also like to chew on carrots or pieces of pumpkin. Only the little one eats raisins from time to time. The squirrels love to bury the nuts in the lawn or in flower boxes. But they also use forks between branches as a hiding place. The squirrels come for breakfast almost every day, in the afternoon they check their food hiding places or dig up nuts again. They look with curiosity into our balcony window.

The title of the video “Every day the squirrel greets anew”, refers to the US-American film comedy “Groundhog Day” from 1993. An arrogant TV presenter is supposed to report about Groundhog Day. His attitude to this task is grumpy and cynical. This is why he gets stuck in a time loop. From now onwards, he has to film the groundhog as it wakes up from hibernation, when it is said to have the ability to predict the weather, every successive day anew. This is ordained to continue until he manages to become a better person.

We assume a happy mood every day when the squirrel greets us anew. If it were up to us, any day could be a squirrel day. When one pops up, the sun also arises in our hearts. Only when one doesn't come, we are sad and think about whether this might be due to what we gave as food? Have our neighbours offered more interesting delicacies?

Andrea Domesle, translated by Christopher Haley Simpson