It's coming along.

Wow, I guess I haven't posted in awhile. Sorry. Lots has been happening since my last post of being in the cage. I do still hang out in my cage... even frequently I fall asleep in there. But also I have come to the point in my IP journey where I have started to see the

right road to go down in order to fully express my idea and thoughts involving animals in zoos. Right now it is just all about experimenting with idea of creating this zoo and giving voice to the animals. It's play-time, but so much mor

e than that.

Here are some images of the tiger home in the zoo... it's not all there it but its getting there. There will also be a home/prison for many of the animals that live in the zoo.

Some more.

Here is a little something I have been experimenting with.

After a terrible meeting last week, I had to regain my strength and confidence in what I was doing. This week has started off 100% better........

IP proposal

Bernadette Preger IP03 proposal (10/12/09)

My idea is to reverse the roles between animals and humans, where the animal would be the human and the human would be the animal. This would be explored through the use of zoos and how they are artificially set up to look some-what like the environment of where those animals came from. I find it interesting how every year the human population grows by millions but the animal population, even though it might not be done intentionally, shrinks smaller and smaller. The animals are being pushed or taken out of their home/habitat and forced to adapt to something completely different. In exchange for taking their natural home humans make them a new plastic home; they are placed in zoos and are left locked up in cages to be viewed upon by humans as some sort of pet. Sounds like a fair trade, right? Wrong. I have been reading this book called, “Zoo Culture” by Bob Mullan and Garry Marvin. It is about how bad zoos are and how they are built to not put the animal first but what is going to bring in the money. For example, animals are not placed within a zoo where they would be best fit depending on their needs, but rather they are placed where they would draw the most people in. By the entrance are positioned the most popular animals.

I am creating this project to show the error of peoples ways and how it feels to be the animal locked up in a cage where you can’t roam free like you were born to do. How I will show this is by designing my own zoo where humans are the ones locked in cages and the animals are the onlookers. I want to have lots of cages with lots of humans in them. And it is set up just like a zoo, but instead of animals feeling out of place in this human setting the humans will be the ones that are out of place in the animals setting (natural environment). I have been looking at the artist Joseph Beuys and how he was locked up with a coyote for three days in a gallery in his quest to coexist with the animal.

My hope in doing and showing this is that humans become more compelled to want to save the animals, rather than just sticking them in zoos and taking over their habitats. The kind of impact I hope my project would have would be not feeling welcomed, feeling out of place, and frightened to both the viewer and the ones in the cages.

This project comes from my heart and my mission to save the endangered species before they are gone forever. We are living in the era where we need to change our living habits to save the earth from destruction. With saving the earth comes saving the earths animals too. In many species of endangered animals, there are only hundreds left in the wild. Rather than placing these animals in zoos, where they clearly do not belong, we need to learn to coexist with animals and respect their boundaries like Joseph Beuys did in his piece. Learning to coexist with each other is very crucial if endangered animals have any chance at all of surviving freely in the wild.

I’m not really sure yet on where exactly this project should take place. If I had unlimited time and money I would make my own REAL zoo and after placing humans in the cages, I would bring in the REAL animals and have them walk around the zoo like people do when visiting a zoo. In reality because I’m probably going to be using video/projections of animals on a wall this would probably have to be situated inside some place like a gallery that is made out to be a zoo. Recently I got to thinking that I should just make this thing doll size and film it to make it seem human size, that way so I don’t have to worry about where I am going to be making/storing my cages, and pieces to the zoo. And with the weather changing outside I think working small is best. But I don't know if it would give the kind of feel that I am looking for.

Today after individual studio meetings I felt lost. I did not get anything out of the meeting.

Studio visit (9/30/09)

After this weeks studio visit when I was talking to Michael he gave me some great ideas for my piece. It made me look at my idea in a whole different way.

5 words that are inspiring to me:

Absence of contentment: By not being fully happy or having a complete satisfaction in something that I'm working on keeps me going and pushing myself to come up with even better ideas on how to showcase them.

Social conditions: It's what's happening around me in this specific time of the century that shows what kind of work must be done. For me, it's the era of global warming and saving the earth so that's what kind of work I focus on.

Rest: Very important to stay rested and healthy to keep the creatively flowing.

Relaxtion or Pressure: Maybe a mixture of both. It's always good to be relaxed and not stressed, but a little pressure is good because it keeps me from falling off the trail of where I want to be.

Joy: Something has to bring me joy in order for me to keep pursuing what I'm doing.

Nature: This of course inspires me. It is what I base most of my work on; to save nature and its beautiful creatures before they are all gone.

Mystery: Leaving the audience with the (right) questions at the end of a piece is rewarding. That means they're talking about your work way after they've seen it.

Production: Everything is in moving forward in the direction where I want to be; everything is on track.

Past: It's the people/artists that did the first ......whatever that is really inspiring to get ideas from. We can learn so much from the past....it is such a great research to pull from.

Feelings: It's because of these that makes me want to do the kind of work that I do. For example, because I feel like I have this connection with animals, it drives me to want to help save them from extinction.

Anger: Anger is a powerful tool, especially towards something that I love. It gets me mad, and again drives me to change it.

Others: Everyone/artists all have different ideas and different ways of looking at things. They are valuable resources for your own work. They can give you feedback that you might not of ever thought of.