Australasian Animal Studies Association
Linda Brant, Mending I, (cattle bone, human bone, human hair) 2018

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Through my art, I examine the ways in which people honor or do not honor nonhuman animals following their deaths. While companion animals are frequently grieved and honored, those that we depend on for food and other products are rarely recognized. With a few noteworthy exceptions, the deaths of farm animals, laboratory animals and wild animals go virtually unnoticed. What makes one species worthy of honoring and another unworthy? What implications do our values and judgements about nonhumans have for humanity? What role does personal and collective guilt play in our sensitivity to or denial of animal deaths? I explore these issues through sculpture, photography, concept-mapping and interactive community-based projects.

Linda Brant, Mending II, (cattle bone, human bone, human hair) 2018

ARTIST:

Linda Brant is a visual artist and clinical psychologist based in Orlando, Florida. She maintains a private practice, teaches graduate-level courses in Psychology at Saybrook University, and serves as Psychological Consultant to Mills Gallery in Orlando, FL. Her art work focuses on honoring and memorializing animals that are not typically regarded as grievable. Brant’s work is featured in Margo DeMello’s text, Mourning Animals (2016); Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture (Summer 2017); and Our Hen House Podcast, Episode 539 (2020). She has received two creativity grants from the Culture & Animals Foundation, partnering with Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in New York to build a monument dedicated To Animals We Do Not Mourn. She is currently collecting (via the US and international postal services) hand-made paper lanterns from individual participants for an All Species Memorial project. Brant has exhibited her work in shows and galleries across the country including the Women’s Research Center Gallery at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL, the Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL, the J. K. and Sarah Galloway Foundation Gallery in Winter Park FL, the Selby Gallery at Ringling College of Art and Design and the Gallery at California State University, Northridge. She has won numerous awards for her work and has presented papers on her various projects at state and national conferences.

VISIT:

www.lindabrant.net

www.unmourned.net  

Project video: Monument To Animals We Do Not Mourn: https://vimeo.com/367591376

Podcast link: https://www.ourhenhouse.org/2020/05/episode-539-artist-linda-brant-and-psychologist-clare-mann/