Nicolas Primat, Antony Hall, Kira O'Reilly, Ruth Maclennan, Beatriz da Costa, Rachel Mayeri and Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson
Exhibition and live event, and a programme of free symposia, workshops, gallery tours and family day
2 - 4 October 2009
A Foundation London, Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, Shoreditch, London E2 7ES, UK
Interspecies asks: Can artists work with animals as equals? If not, what is the current state of the human-animal relationship? It has recently been shown that humans are closer to the higher primates than previously thought, with chimpanzee and gorilla behaviour reflecting politics, deception and even possibly creativity. What does this mean to the way we see ourselves as one species inhabiting a planet in crisis? Interspecies uses artistic and participatory strategies to stimulate dialogue and debate, showing artists in contact with real animals and negotiating a new power relationship, questioning the way we view our interactions with animals during Darwin's anniversary year.
Interspecies follows provocative exhibitions such as Atomic and Clean Rooms where The Arts Catalyst has commissioned artists to explore contested issues in science and society. This exhibition centres around a durational work by Kira O'Reilly and draws together projects by Nicolas Primat and other artists who question the one-sided manipulation of non-human life-forms for art, and have tried to enter the animals’ point of view as a fundamental part of their practice. It has to some extent been inspired by Donna Haraway's When Species Meet, but was triggered by discussions with the late Nicolas Primat.
Nicolas Primat was the only artist in the world who specialised in directly working with monkeys and apes in collaboration with primatologists. In Portrait de Famille, he is playfully swarmed by a tribe of squirrel monkeys, in Demo Bonobo, he established a relationship via sexual signals with a group of Bonobo apes and in The Making of Les Petits Hommes Vers he and his colleagues make a science fiction film with a group of monkeys. Nicolas Primat (it was his real name) believed there is a hidden monkey in all of us.
Kira O'Reilly, artist and Deliah, a pig, take part in the durational performance Falling Asleep With A Pig. Kira O'Reilly is one of the most experimental and provocative performance artists in the UK, currently artist in residence at the school of Biosciences, University of Birmingham. For Interspecies the artist and pig will cohabit a living space, partially viewable by the public for 72 hours. At some point the pig and artist will fall asleep. The work addresses the ethics of human and animal interaction, acknowledging the implicit ambivalences and violence in the appropriation of animals as a resource. Kira and Deliah carried out the performance at Interspecies in Manchester earlier in the year and now undertake the work for a longer period.
Antony Hall's Enki Experiment 4 allows visitors to Interspecies to communicate with an electric fish on the same level, avoiding the use of language, instead stimulating a shared empathy through a physical connection. Ruth Maclennan's work explores the relationship between a bird of prey and the human being who trains it, capturing the rapt gaze of hunter and bird, recalling ancient ideas of shape-shifting and shamanic transformations. Rachel Mayeri's Primate Cinema: Baboons as Friends juxtaposes footage of baboons taken in the field with a re-enactment by human actors, shot film noir style in a bar in Los Angeles. A tale of lust, jealousy, sex and violence transpires simultaneously in non-human and human worlds.
Beatriz da Costa's work PigeonBlog proposes an alternative way to participate in environmental air pollution data-gathering through equipping urban homing pigeons with GPS-enabled sensing devices. PigeonBlog is intended as a social experiment between humans and animals. Da Costa is a former collaborator with Critical Art Ensemble. Snæbjörnsdóttir/
Wilson's Radio Animal* involves a mobile unit – a specially designed caravan in which the artists to travel to various locations in the UK to gather material from people about their relationship to animals. They are particularly interested in animals that are considered ‘unwelcome’ visitors but have for whatever reason found their way into what we may consider our own territories.
In Donna Haraway's investigation of the ‘companion species’, she suggests that “reversing the order of invention, humans didn’t invent dogs, dogs invented themselves and adopted humans as part of their reproductive strategy”. In her lectures, she also shows a cartoon slide of several wolves in a forest, one of whom is wearing tracking equipment. “The telemetrically-equipped wolf is being introduced to the wild pack by her mentor and the mentor is saying: We found her wandering at the edge of the forest. She was raised by scientists.” The Arts Catalyst in partnership with A Foundation presents Interspecies to explore some of these playful speculations on relations between species.
Interspecies is a development from the exhibition that took place at Cornerhouse, Manchester
from 24 January – 22 March 2009. It is presented in partnership with A Foundation and is funded by: Arts Council England, Darwin200.
* Radio Animal is part of a Storey Gallery, Lancaster commission Uncertainty in the city and is funded by the Henry Moore Foundation
FREE EVENTS
Friday 2 October
6pm Exhibition tour with curator Rob La Frenais
7–9pm Symposium: Non-Human Primates
With Patrick Munck, collaborator with Nicolas Primat, Rachel Mayeri and Sarah Jane Vick, primatologist.
Limited spaces, click here to book a place.
Saturday 3 October
1-3pm and 3.30-5.30pm Primate Cinema: How To Act like An Animal
Two workshops with Rachel Mayeri for over 16s exploring the social dynamics of non-human primates through performance. Click here for more details.
Limited spaces, click here to book a place.
2pm Tour of ENKI experiment 4 with Antony Hall
3–6pm, Symposium: Animals, Humans and Power (BSL interpreted)
With Antennae editor Giovanni Aloi, Photograppher Karen Knorr, Helen MacDonals, writer of Falcon, Ruth Maclennan and Snaebornsdottir/Wilson.
Limited spaces, click here to book a place.
6pm, How to Act Like An Animal performance
Sunday 4 October: Interspecies Family Day (2-5pm)
Stop Press: Unfortunately James Mackay's talk on Sunday 4 October has had to be cancelled due to unforseeable circumstances.
2-4pm Becoming Bowerbirds
These intriguing birds show unusual creativity - they construct bowers which they decorate with found objects to attract females. Children aged 5 and over are invited to be a bowerbird for the afternoon with artist Sally Hampson. (From an Arts Catalyst project at London Zoo co-funded by COPUS). Advance booking recommended.
2pm, 3pm and 4pm, Interspecies Tales
By poet and storyteller Shamim Azad
Admission free to all events
Accompanied children and families welcome. Unfortunately, dogs cannot be permitted.
Limited ACCESS to some parts of the exhibition and events, please contact admin@artscatalyst.org for further information
Interspecies will be accompanied by an online catalogue published by Antennae in 2010