Animal Lover
interspecies art
co-creating art with other animals
about
Animal Lover (2008-2014) is a body of work started with my late dogs Tom (2004-2020) and Sugi (2005-2021). I was inspired by their creativity and emotional life and how this could be part of my art practice. Together, we explored things they liked to do, such as ball chasing, running beside my bike, vocalizing, and hiking in the woods. These activities became the basis of art processes that involved recording them and story-telling through video, sound and media.
The Animal Lover body of work expanded in 2014 to include projects in co-creation with salmon populations (Salmon People), birds (see Bird Park Survival Station) and forest communities (Biophilia).
PROJECTS:
Animal Lover projects are guided by creative processes of indeterminacy, ethics of engagement and ethics of representation. The processes involve open-ended situations that explore animal agency; having them take the lead in creating content for the artwork. Methods of play and respect are used, while paying attention to how they’re responding or what they’re communicating. For example, the dogs and I developed gesture and voice communications in order to understand each other. Anytime they showed boredom or were unwilling to participate, I modified my approach or ended the session.
How animals are represented in the artwork is important for modelling human-animal relations for viewing publics. With the Animal Lover work, animal agency and creativity is foregrounded representing them as co-creators of cultural forms.
team:
Julie Andreyev
Tom and Sugi
Simon Overstall, computation
supported by:
Canada Council for the Arts
BC Arts Council
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
associated publications:
– Andreyev, Julie. Lessons from a Multispecies Art Studio: Uncovering Ecological Understanding & Biophilia Through Creative Reciprocity. Intellect Books, 2021.
– Berland, Jody. Digital Animalities. Toronto: PUBLIC, 2021.
– Leong, Penny. “Other Beings, Julie Andreyev.” Espace 121 Animal Point of View, hiver/winter 2019, Montreal.
– Andreyev, Julie. “Salmon People.” Public Art Dialogue Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2019, 141-163. 10.1080/21502552.2019.1644113
– Andreyev, Julie. “Responding to Dogs.” Humanimalia: A Journal of Human/Animal Interface Studies. Volume 8, Number 2, Spring 2017. DePauw University, USA, 2017.
– Andreyev, Julie. (book chapter) “Compassion Manifesto: An Ethics for Art + Design and Animals.” New Critical Perspectives on Veganism. Castricano, Jodey and Rasmus R. Simonsen (Eds.) Palgrave MacMillan, 2016.
– Andreyev, Julie. “Canine Haiku: The Yellow Ball”, The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada, ALECC (Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada), Laurier University, 2015. Web. http://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose.
– Andreyev, Julie. “Dog Voice: A Memoir”, Antennae: The Journal of Nature and Visual Culture, Issue 21, 2012. www.antennae.org.uk
– Andreyev, Julie and Simon Lysander Overstall. “Wait”, Leonardo, Special Issue Volume 44, Number 4, ACM SIGGRAPH, MIT Press, Leonardo/ISAST, Cambridge, Mass., 2011.
– Andreyev, Julie. “Animal Lover: Aria”, Art Catalogue/Computational Aesthetics 2009, Eurographics Association, Germany, 2009.