Marijke, our founder, was invited to speak about the Dolphin Swim Club at Bynt, a programme by Omrop Fryslân. Bynt offers interesting reports and events on current topics and encourages guests to tell their stories.
Therapeutic swimming with dolphins is now possible from the comfort of your living room. Artist Marijke Sjollema and her husband introduce ‘occulus glasses’ that allow you to swim with dolphins, in Virtual Reality. And today this was put into practice for the first time.
“In this film you see bottlenose and spinner dolphins, filmed in the bright blue waters of the Red Sea. We were lucky so many pods showed up, there were times we were surrounded by no less than 90 dolphins! Research has shown that dolphin therapy may have healing effects, but this is usually carried out with captive dolphins. With our 360-degrees film, we hope to offer a sustainable and animal-friendly alternative.”
The interview with Marijke starts at 16:45 minutes.
Language: Frysian
Swimming with wild dolphins in Virtual Reality as a therapy for patients suffering from, for example, autism or depression. The idea comes from the artist Marijke Sjollema, from Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. She set off to film wild dolphins in Egypt in 2015. The University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG) embraced the project immediately. The hospital starts with a study of the effects of this new drug free medicine.
The hospital UMCG in Groningen shows interest in the Virtual Reality project of the Dolphin Swim Club. They have developed a programme that makes it possible to actually swim with dolphins. The art project also has a scientific impact. Swimming with dolphins is sometimes used as a form of therapy, especially for autism and depression. The content of the Dolphin Swim Club is filmed so realistically, patients feel as if they truly swim with the dolphins and that should have a positive effect on the treatment. The UMGC will investigate the results of the programme over the next two years.