Open Source Curriculum
Animal Collaborations
with Kitty Ross
May 2021 // .edu edition
Select Readings
Monstrous Empathy by Nato Thompson
Between Species: Animal-Human Collaboration in Contemporary Art by Chad Elias
Contemporary Art, Animals and Ethics: Pierre Huyghe’s Interspecies Worlds by Kate MacNeill
On Interspecies Creativity by Lula Criado and Meritxell Rosell
The Postmodern Animal by Steve Baker
Discussion Guide
Exercise
About the Topic
Animals’ senses pick up on different things (a survival tactic), different animals in the same ecosystem actually live in very different worlds (their Umwelt). Everything about a person or animal shapes the world it inhabits. Animals see detail, humans see generalities. Animals don’t need us, but we need them. If we present an animal with an object, they will make sense of it according to their instincts and survival tactics. If we present them with a material like clay, perhaps they will use it. Whatever they do with it, we, the artists, learn from the perceptions and behaviors of the other animal. Artists have collaborated with insects, wild and domestic animals in performance, video and sculpture for the purpose and possibility of understanding our relationship to objects, materials, and other species. In this State of Ceramics conversation we will consider how the approach of ‘animal collaborations’ has already expanded the ceramic field and how this approach itself is continuing to expand today.
About the Artist
Katherine’s (Kitty’s) ceramic work has always been concerned with the complex relationship we have to this material and the subtle, coded ways it operates within our culture. Over the years she has utilized ceramics, often combined with video, photography and mixed media, within large-scale installations.
She is Professor Emeritus at the School of the Art Institute and a faculty member since 1981, chairing the Ceramics Department. From 2008 to 2010 she served as the Interim Dean of Graduate Studies at the SAIC, and from 2006 to 2008 served as the Graduate Division Chair.
Katherine’s work is published widely in periodicals and books on ceramic art in the U.S., Great Britain, China, Australia, and Switzerland. Katherine is an elected member of the International Academy of Ceramics headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland; an invited member of the International Arts & Design Experts Committee of the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing; and a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.