Author: Louise Pallister
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Animals Out of Place
There’s a post on Instagram; a photo mottled with gallery reflections, close-up and a little oblique. It shows a vintage glass slide of a zookeeper and his charge. It’s not the best image but has an instant power. The keeper, wearing a peaked cap and a stern expression, holds high a short, straight chain. On…
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Significant Others
If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. – Ludwig Wittgenstein I am animal and so are you, but where do we start and end, and could we, ever, converse as equals amongst other animals? It is as much a question about Us as about Them. As early as the…
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Lives, Loves and Loss at Fenton House
The silvery tinkling of servants’ bells welcomes me into the house of merchant Joshua Gee. There’s a fire in the grate and sweet treats on offer in the Still Room where I’m handed a candle to illuminate the winter afternoon, a parchment inventory of household goods and a quill pen so that I may note…
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Extinction and the Image
Animals. The non-human kind. They are everywhere in an increasingly virtual world and more often not there in reality. Our eyes and minds seem instinctively to search out and recognise animal forms. Whether we experience a physical encounter or one mediated through the image, animals are insistent to us in their familiarity. So too in…