ARTIST STATEMENT
CARNEVALE took place at Easter Howgate Farm within Scotland’s Rural College in April 2017. Artists Andrea Roe and Cath Keay designed play objects with the aim to improve the lives of intensively reared pigs by creating enrichment toys for the pigs that lived there. Film footage shows the pigs’ investigative exploration of objects using their bodies and snouts. During play they reveal their immense enthusiasm and curiosity to explore novel objects. A newspaper publication was produced which brings together the voices and expressions of artists, writers, animal behaviour scientists and pigs. The project was supported by a Leverhulme Trust artist residency award.
A collaborative project with Cath Keay exploring animal welfare questions and revealing the enthusiasm of pigs for investigative play: http://www.thelearnedpig.org/carnevale Photography: Norrie Russell
THE ARTIST
Andrea Roe is an artist and lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art. Her artwork examines the nature of human and animal biology, behaviour, communication and interaction within specific ecological contexts. She actively seeks opportunities to pursue her interests in animal sentience, definitions of wildness, and the practice of domestication, and has undertaken participatory fieldwork across veterinary disciplines to feed her research which addresses questions on the integrity of the animal and how this is altered by human interaction and intervention.
Maltesers box, model cat, fibre optics. Photography: Andrea Roe
In 2016-17 a Leverhulme Trust artist in residency at Scotland’s Rural College presented the opportunity to work with animal behaviour and welfare scientists, which led to an ongoing inquiry into the animal mind, looking at how we might bridge the communication gap between humans and animals and better understand the perspective of another species.
The text Big Cat Sighting is printed with heat sensitive ink which causes it to disappear when the book is handled. Inside are eight images of locations in Aberdeenshire where big cats have reportedly been seen. Photography: Andrea Roe
VISIT