Please Do Not Feed The Humans

Humans and animals do not exist independently of one another; rather, they continually shape each other through long histories of coexistence, observation, imagination, and domestication. Humans have also long used animal forms and characteristics to understand themselves, projecting emotions, desires, instincts, power relations, and social structures onto them. Please Do Not Feed the Humans invites artists to place animals at the visual center of their work, using their bodies, behaviors, characteristics, and symbolism to reflect on or respond to issues within human society. Borrowing the language of a zoo warning sign, the exhibition title reverses the familiar relationship of looking: as humans shift from being the observers of animals to becoming the subjects of the animals' gaze, we are prompted to reconsider our own position within this relationship and to question anthropocentric ways of seeing, categorizing, controlling, and understanding the world.