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Zoos

Blue and Gold Macaw. Wales, 2017. © Craig Redmond
This series explores the unnatural captivity of wild animals in zoos - ‘False Environments’ where the paintings of trees, rocks and other landscapes may fool the viewing public but do nothing to benefit the lives of animals who will never experience freedom.
“Zoos and aquariums claim to offer visitors the chance to see and connect with other species, but all they provide is the opportunity to ogle caged otherness, and to feel superior to all the exotic wild animals whose exoticism and wildness their captors have stripped away in the service of 'edutainment', commerce, voyeurism and ultimately anthropocentrism – the ideology that construes human beings as the most important living creatures. (But we aren’t: Ecology is a complex web of interconnection, not a hierarchy.)”
Randy Malamud, Professor of English at Georgia State University, USA, and author of Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity

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Copyright: © Craig Redmond
Image Size: 5472x3648 / 4.9MB; www.craigredmondphotos.co.uk; zoo captivity animal animal rights
Contained in galleries: False Environments

Blue and Gold Macaw. Wales, 2017. © Craig Redmond<br />
This series explores the unnatural captivity of wild animals in zoos - ‘False Environments’ where the paintings of trees, rocks and other landscapes may fool the viewing public but do nothing to benefit the lives of animals who will never experience freedom. <br />
“Zoos and aquariums claim to offer visitors the chance to see and connect with other species, but all they provide is the opportunity to ogle caged otherness, and to feel superior to all the exotic wild animals whose exoticism and wildness their captors have stripped away in the service of 'edutainment', commerce, voyeurism and ultimately anthropocentrism – the ideology that construes human beings as the most important living creatures. (But we aren’t: Ecology is a complex web of interconnection, not a hierarchy.)”<br />
Randy Malamud, Professor of English at Georgia State University, USA, and author of Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity