Seeing Animals More Deeply Through The Arts
Women Artists for Animals Roundtable Discussion
This Women Artists for Animals roundtable presentation will explore some of the ways that the visual arts can be a tool for helping animals and for re-awakening the inherent bond we share with other beings, as well as for examining the duality of our relationship with animals and their treatment in society. Each roundtable participant talk about their work for 10-15 minutes, and then the topic will be open for group discussion.
Event capacity full. Registration closed to new submissions after 11/17
Photo: Jo:Anne McAthur/We Animals
The Roundtable
Jo-Anne McArthur is an award-winning photojournalist, sought-after speaker, and the founder of We Animals Media. She has been documenting the plight of animals on all seven continents for almost two decades. She is the author of two books, We Animals (2014), and Captive (2017) and was the subject of Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall’s acclaimed documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machine. Jo-Anne is based in Toronto, Canada and travels many months each year to document and share the stories of animals worldwide.
Jo-Anne will be focusing her talk at the roundtable on Animal Photojournalism (APJ) - an emergent genre of photography that captures, memorializes, and exposes the experiences of animals who live amongst us, but who we fail to see. More photographers are undertaking this type of work and it is gaining acceptance and credibility in the media and is contributing heavily to the evolving conversation about animal use and ethics. Importantly, it is also contributing to animal advocacy campaigns and legislative change.
During this roundtable, Jo-Anne discusses Animal Photojournalism and shares images and stories from almost twenty years in the field, and why she's hopeful for the future.
Jane O’Hara is an artist and curator exploring our complex relationship with animals through visual narratives that reveal how the animal condition poses a duality. O'Hara has mounted solo exhibitions of her artwork at numerous galleries and is a Courage of Conscience Award honoree from the Peace Abbey Foundation. A Culture and Animals Foundation grant recipient alumni, she is also curator of the Beasts of Burden group exhibit project and author of its gallery book by the same name. Jane O'Hara has been an integral part of Compassion Arts initiatives since 2015, both as an artist, collaborator, and speaker, giving presentations at Worcester Art Museum (MA), Symphony Space (NY), PACE University (NY) and Boston Veg Fest (MA) among others, and in creating individualized paintings each year for the Artist for Ahimsa Award, which is given to honorees for their work in the arts for animal advocacy.
Jane will be focusing her roundtable talk on the story of how her artistry in animal advocacy came to be, and on the paintings in her online exhibit FORGET ME NOT for Compassion Arts Festival this year, which through its compositions, helps us to celebrate the beauty of animals and not forget the animals behind the scenes.
Janell O’Rourke is a visual artist working in the language of drawing, painting, object making, contemporary silhouettes, photography and stop motion vignettes, to explore the questions and prejudices that objectify other animals and our relationships with them. The mission of her work is to use her artistry towards establishing a new ethic in how we view animals, both in society and in art. Her artwork has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums in New York and across the country, and is also featured in The Art of the Animal (Lantern Books) and other publications. O’Rourke is co-founder and member of ArtAnimalAffect, a coalition of artists working to bridge art with activism, co-founded with artists Kathryn Eddy and L.A.Watson . ArtAnimalAffect is dedicated to using the visual arts for examining prevailing concepts about human/animal relationships and for offering alternative narratives rooted in empathy and hope for the future.
Janell will be focusing her roundtable talk on the work of ArtAnimalAffect and their projects: My Body Is Mine by O’Rourke, Roadside Memorial Project by LA Watson, and Urban Wild Coyote Project by Kathryn Eddy.
Carolyn Merino Mullin is best known for her work as the founder of The Animal Museum in Los Angeles, the world’s first museum dedicated to exploring the human-animal bond with a dual focus on animal protection and human-animal studies. A dedicated animal advocate, Mullin has overseen or been involved with numerous projects for helping animals and raising awareness, both through the arts and through her extensive work in animal protection.
Currently with the Oxnard Performing Arts & Convention Center, Mullin has been involved in all aspects of museology (exhibition development and curation, education, events etc) with The Miami Science Museum, The Chico Museum, Casa Dolores (Center for the Study of the Popular Arts of Mexico), and the Miami Children's Museum. Her work has been featured in the LA & NY Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, NPR, LA Weekly, Huffington Post, Bark Magazine, Psychology Today, and dozens of other media outlets.
In addition to being a contributing author to several books including The Art of the Animal and Mourning Animals, she continues her welfare work for animals as a Board Member for My Dog is My Home, a national organization striving to keep individuals experiencing homelessness and their pets together.