How becoming-animal can be reimagined by contemporary artists to reconfigure interspecies relationships
Through a practice-based approach, my aim is to rethink 'becoming-animal' and animality, and to consider what new multi-species relationships might be possible; more specifically, I will focus on molluscs/insects, which inhabit a narrow paradoxical space between the wild and the domestic; between notions of re-wilding and the destruction of 'pests'. These animals are unable to return the gaze or reciprocate corporeal communication and this places them 'across an abyss of non-comprehension' (Berger, 2009) from humans, affording them a lesser status.
My aim is to explore how the artwork might enable a reimagining of new multi-species kinships to create a greater awareness of the ecological importance of such animals.