The Illusion of Liberty
In this project I wanted to explore the constructed environment of the country's zoos, focusing particularly on the enclosures and the architecture of these strange theatres, in which the players are exotic animals and displaced trees. There is a sense of melancholy in these places, which is juxtaposed against a fictional sense of utopia, and the romanticed childhood vision many of us remember.
I find something odd and strangely appealing about these constructed habitats of plastic rocks and painted backgrounds. There is a mixture of somber grimness with intrigue. We must allow a suspension of disbelief to allow our enjoyment of such places, but the cracks in the facade are clear and our experience is often tainted with a sense of discomfort and disappointment.
It is this sense of disappointment that forms the central theme of this body of work. For many of us a trip to the zoo is an experience of empty cages, fleeting glimpses and a search for answers in the captions on the glass, which present the often absent animals as if articles in a cabinet of curiosities.
This series chronicles the absent and the hidden, mostly in the form of empty or abandoned enclosures. It allows the focus to move from the animals to their stages, asking us to examine what is usually a mere background to the central actors.
