PROXIMITY TO ANIMALS

The thesis exhibition Proximity to Animals critically explored the varying and complex proximity animals share with humans. The exhibition served as a platform by which to investigate the dynamic bond people have to the natural world elaborating on natural history museums, taxidermy, John Berger’s disappearing animal, posthumanism and social and cultural frames. Within natural history museums and zoos, the meanings of objects, more specifically animal bodies, are not inherent but rather socially and theoretically constructed. The artists exhibited in Proximity to Animals: Nader Hasan, Rob MacInnis, Amy Swartz and Janice Wright Cheney engaged with the visibility and multiple contradictions related to the denaturalized animal, embracing what the natural history museum and the zoo often conceal: themes of dominance, consumption hierarchy, and human narrative