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.