Success! Theater of the World Done
The six o' clock news reported that the Vancouver Art Gallery will be removing the live animals from "Theater of the World" in Huang Yong Ping's Retrospective : House of Oracles. I am utterly relieved, this travesty has been robbing me of sleep for nearly two weeks. There is some justice in the world. Words cannot express my elation... so here is the press release in all of its glory:
PRESS RELEASE
VICTORY: Art Gallery Will Remove Animals
Peter Hamilton, of the Vancouver based ecology organization Lifeforce, is pleased to hear that the Vancouver Art Gallery will finally remove all animals from the controversial exhibit “Theatre of the World”.
Lifeforce implemented a letter writing campaign to the Management and Directors of the Art Gallery. We also urged people to tell the SPCA to immediately seize the animals because the SPCA agreed that the captives could die.
“The species are from different ecosystems and are subjected to a forced predator/prey relationship. Society must not condone promoting violence and cruelty in our society and to other sentient creatures, stated Peter Hamilton, Lifeforce Director, ”Forcing animals to fight is not art, it is sadistic”.
Vancouver has been a leader in recognizing Animal Rights Day and implementing animal protection laws. If the Vancouver Art Gallery curators continued this cruelty, they would be impeding the progress towards developing a compassionate society for all life.
BCCTV reported that the Art Gallery would keep the “cage” in the exhibit as a “protest”. Our response is that it is unfortunate that the Art Gallery doesn’t fully respect the rights of animals. If they keep the death trap, they should paint it red in respect of the animals who would have died. However, they should remove the offensive cage and deem the space a “Memorial Against Animal Cruelty”.
For further info:
Peter Hamilton
Founding Director
Lifeforce Foundation
Box 3117
Vancouver, BC V6B 3X6
604-649-5258
www.lifeforcefoundation.org
Labels: animal cruelty, art exhibitions, vancouver
posted by Phyllis McGreevey @ 9:50 PM
5 Comments:
Well done, good karma to you for alerting all of us. I am glad that someone had the guts to speak out on this issue.
After a series of swift, surgical media strikes, carefully choreographed by Dom, the Vancouver Art Gallery has, I understand, finally removed the 'artwork' which included animals from their current exhibition
"Theater of the World" Huang Yong Ping's Retrospective. Thank heavens!
In the course of Dom's crusade to free her fellow sentient beings, this art piece, which incorporated various snakes, lizards, toads and insects, became a national Canadian news story, featured on the CBC, CTV and in the Globe and Mail newspaper, for example. While in the care of the Vancouver Art Gallery, two toads, 'los desparacidos' (the disappeared ones) may well have paid the ultimate price in the service of some one else's notion of art.
The other creatures fared better. They have now been freed from Canada's own Guantanamo, courtesy of Dominika's dedication and focused praxis in their cause.
Good job!
May liberation one day come to us all!
The final count for dead animals was four, although the variety was unspecified.
Dom
What? only 4? Surely we could have gotten into the double digits?!
But seriously, Dom, I'm so impressed by what you helped get accomplished. Good luck this Thursday (are you actually participating, or just witnessing?).
Oh, and I think you have some explaining to do....
Victory!
Barf.
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