Caged: Non-human animals as decoration and entertainment

Abstract

Caged: Non-human animals as decoration and entertainment This paper will discuss the development of a documentary research project with a social justice agenda. Caged, was developed in response to the way we use animals for entertainment and decoration. Primarily developed around the subject of animals in captivity, the work has been designed to raise questions about our relationship to nonhuman animals by 'inducing empathy' in order to challenge our moral boundaries. The use of animals as spectacles reduces them to a visual form as opposed to a 'form of life' and limits our ability to recognize their sentience (Chrulew, 2011). Drawing on recognizable human emotions and traits through photography and time-lapse animation, Caged combines the evidentiary data collected by the author in zoos around the world with the affective personal experience of bearing witness to the phenomena (Blakely & Lloyd, 2009), to produce a visual language in which to discuss a case study of animal-human relationships. The project was created in zoos in Australia, China, Malaysia, Germany and Dubai and is an ongoing exploration of our complex relationship with non-human animals. Historically menageries and zoological gardens reflected wealth, empire, and power. Contemporary zoological gardens trade under the more noble intentions of providing educational experiences for visitors in addition to running conservational programs for endangered species. John Berger (1980) describes zoos as institutions where animals become living monuments to their own disappearance, through which humans exercise their desire to connect with and control non-human species. Through visuals and text this paper presents findings that discuss sentience, conservation, and human nature.