Red Peter Sculpture

My fascination is with awkward conjunctions and contradictions between people and animals. I use ambiguity, absurdity and humour to blur boundaries, and to question ways in which we relate to other species. We cannot escape our humanness but the point of my work is to consider the possibility of becoming something other I find a position of sameness with animals. I step into their world to explore it not from a separate human position but from a position of animality. Our similarities are juxtaposed, magnified and exaggerated to create paradoxical scenes, re-presenting definitions of humanness I began studying animal politics and philosophy eight years ago and looked at how animals are represented in art and popular culture. My work is closely bound up in the notion of becoming-animal, with humans straying into the psychological territories of animals. Becoming-animal is above and below the threshold of perception and presents us with an alternative way of thinking about identity I work with film, video performance and photography. I also draw, and make sculptures and installations. My video performances are an exploration of animality as a psychological space in which to communicate differently; to behave, move and even see differently. My performances are unplanned and unscripted, and feature slow, subconscious movements, as if outside human time and space. Narrative and reality appear dislocated. Using a playful and serious intent, my aim is for the viewer to lose self awareness Animals feature as the protagonists in my work. Like a wildlife documentary film maker, I film animals in their natural habitat. Slow motion is prevalent, taking the film out of documentary mode and turning it into the medium of the animal. I hold open a space of ambiguity and position myself in that space with the animal. I like the power of the living animal’s role as itself in art as it inadvertently suppresses the human