KINDRED

Patricia Piccinini

What do we owe to nature?

Question the idea that humans are vastly separate from animals and consider the care we owe our environment through Kindred. Destroying natural environments for human benefit has become commonplace but at a huge cost. Consider the orangutan – losing its home to deforestation despite sharing approximately 97% of the same DNA. This orangutan-like mother sits with her uncannily human babies, carrying them with tender care. Despite their differences, they gather together as family. Look into her eyes and consider the scene. The more you look the more you might realise that we are more related than we think.

What ways do we draw similarities and differences with other creatures?

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Patricia Piccinini is an Australian artist whose work encompasses sculpture, photography, video and drawing. Her practice examines the increasingly nebulous boundary between the artificial and the natural as it appears in contemporary culture and ideas. Her surreal drawings, hybrid animals and vehicular creatures question the way that contemporary technology and culture changes our understanding of what it means to be human and wonders at our relationships with – and responsibilities towards – that which we create.

Photography: Matthew Stanton