Unpacking the works from the SPOM exhibition, which arrived back this week. The pieces are flattened, but will drop out with a bit of hanging on the studio wall. Added in some of the new milk pods, just because … why not.
I’ll be presenting on the Art Panel at Animal Intersections #AASA2017, The University of Adelaide on Monday 3 July. Also a new installation/iteration of my work boobscape, 2017 will be featured in the exhibition of the same name being held at The Peanut Gallery and Nexus Arts between 4-16 July, Adelaide. More info coming soon.
Imaging a future where no one knows what these objects were for… did we provide them to birds in trouble? were they in museums to demonstrate the type of egg produced by different birds? why the dominance of chickens? did rabbits and lions lay eggs? Utopian dreams
Imaging a future when these products are obsolescent. Utopian dreams.
I have been accepted into the inaugural Animals & Society Institute Summer Program, hosted by the University of Illinois for the project speaking meat – following on from the work I produced with Bruce Mowson for ‘Why Listen to Animals?’ for Liquid Architecture, presented at Westspace in 2016.
speaking meat: the possibilities and issues of strategic anthropomorphism in creative practice
The project/problem I will be addressing in this institute is what are the possibilities and issues related to using ‘strategic anthropomorphism’ in creative practices? Does strategic anthropomorphism simply flatten out the alterity that ethical empathic engagements with non-human animals should illicit. This project aims to explore, investigate and play with the possibilities of strategic anthropomorphism in giving voice to animal bodies, and in particular the meaty remains of animal bodies. Anthropomorphism is viewed critically within the visual arts and often, if not always, elided with anthropocentrism, but has recently found support in a range of other disciplines from the animal sciences to literary studies.
no matter how many notes I make – the weather, the latex age/batch, and just who knows what … conspire to affect the outcome – and most times these unknowables and uncontrollables are most welcomed – but when I really want a certain density / thickness to be reached so the boobs can hold their form without padding, and twice the casts have come off the mold too thin … it’s just too annoying
First cast from mould no.2. Image on the left shows the work slightly padded – and it has produced a lovely udder shadow on the wall.
Having way too much fun with the relationship between udder and utter [a word I tend to utterly overuse]. This clay mould is ready to cast. I really enjoy the strings in the background looking like thin streams of milk – I’d been thinking more elaborately of streams of white silicon – but maybe strings are able to do the job just as effectively. 
