To the Dogs
by Rosie Barnes
portfolio shortlisted call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023', 2023
Category: Nature, Environment and Perspectives
To the Dogs is on one hand a playful series that documents people's dog portraits, in situ in their homes... on the other it explores and considers our place in this world.
Throughout history, our ancestors would have painted portraits commissioned of themselves, displayed in prominent places in their homes. These portraits would portray the sitter in the most flattering light, to reflect power, virtue, beauty, wealth, taste. Of course, the conveyance of these characteristics was not always truthful. A rather myopic utopia of self.
Today's commissioned portraits of choice are of our pets, our dogs. It seems things may have shifted. Here, we have dogs as representatives of the natural world. Are they not the ones who should be revered? For how much longer will we insist upon believing ourselves to be the superior race on this earth? Eventually human life will become unsustainable here and it will be nature who will reclaim.
Maybe we should look with more respect and take more seriously the intelligence and personhood of non-human life. Perhaps here is the future. Not man, but man's best friend, status elevated, a symbol for a better world.
A salutation : To the Dogs.
also from Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023