'In principle, each cage is a frame round the animal inside it. Visitors visit the zoo to look at animals. They proceed from cage to cage, not unlike visitors in an art gallery who stop in front of one painting, and then move on to the next or the one after next. Yet in the zoo the view is always wrong.'
-John Berger, Why Look At Animals?, 1980
Throughout history animals have fascinated humans, they have been deified, enslaved, humanized, domesticated and endlessly researched. They became subjects of novels, films and fine art. The photographs and accompanying text in this exhibition offer viewers another chance to consider the animal: what it means to them and how these photographs go about provoking a new thought or feeling about the animal depicted. In the early 19th century people used the daguerrotype process to capture images of their beloved pets. In contemporary photography animals are presented in a wide variety of ways – portraits, in the wild, on video, and each artist has his or her own agenda as to what they intend the final image to represent. The 18 photographs of mammals included in this exhibition represent a slice of the vast photographic forum of animals captured on camera.