LEAST CONCERN TEAM
Sophie Cashen
Griffin Joerger
Emma Paxson
Jack Yu
PROJECT STATEMENT
Our project focuses on the extinction scale classification of ‘least concern,’ and reflects upon the category’s effects on the perception of species under that classification. We explored the subject by studying its societal implications, creating art, and analyzing literature and scientific research. Mixed-media digital collages were utilized to present the collaboration between our four disciplines. Centered on each collage is a visual art piece dedicated to the animals, and constructed using a variety of unconventional media and materials.We gathered much of our information through the IUCN red list, as well as some data from scientific journals and other investigative articles and writings about the species. In order to discuss the growing separation between wild animals and human perception, we scanned poems and short stories that centered on specific species for tone. We found that people often create anthropomorphized versions of animals’ characters, and while those consensus are arbitrary, they’re also nearly unanimous. Finally, we encourage our audience to reflect upon the continuous impact that colonialism has on our way of understanding nature and animal species, and we point to the concept of decolonization, where the rethinking of our relationship to nature and animal species as human is crucial. We hope our presentation invites creative thinking into previously rigid scientific structures, and allows for self-questioning.
WORKS CITED
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(used his cover art to cover the object that goes to the buffalo collage when clicked)
Also used a poem of his, but he is credited
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