A crab carcass on the shore of the Baltic Sea presents a mystery, compelling us to place the creature in a story we can understand. We feel the urge to categorise, to determine its purpose, unsettled by its otherness. But in our rush to assign meaning, we almost forget to consider the crab’s own desires. We might even assign malignant agency to its instinctual behaviour.

Inspired by the surrealist game, Exquisite Corpse is a film that pieces together the story of a Harris mud crab — a new species in these waters since 2011. This lone crab becomes an entry point into a layered story of “invasive species”, their role in disrupted ecosystems and the questions they raise about human values in a world of constant environmental flux.