Mella Jaarsma (Dogwalk)

род. 1960, Эммелорд, Нидерланды. Живет и работает в Джокьякарте, Индонезия

Dogwalk, 2016/2019
Leather, stuffed cow and goat feet, two-channel video. Dimensions variable, video, 3’ 10”
Courtesy of the artist

The twelve costumes created by Yogyakarta-based artist Mella Jaarsma operate both as an installation and as a set of separate, wearable items. The set comes alive once a week as a part of a performance in which actors wearing the “uniforms” transform into half human-half animals strolling through the Museum and holding each other on leashes. Alluding to a contemporary version of ancient anthropomorphic animals, which featured in numerous cultures as deities or god-like creatures with supernatural powers or which behaved outside established norms, Dogwalk reflects on the long and ambivalent relationship between humans and animals and, more broadly, on the overly simplistic binary oppositions we often operate within.