KINDLING: Linnea Ryshke

How do we recover the value of other animals as beings worthy of reverence and curiosity? Artist and poet Linnea Ryshke has devoted her work to this question. Her book, Kindling, is a curation of poetry, photography and artwork, which is featured in the gallery exhibition. Her poems describe in detail her experience working as a laborer at an organic meat farm, while her artwork offers subtlety and intimacy in the portrayal of the animal subjects. In both, her approach is anchored in the practice of empathy with the creatures who are valued as commodities.

She writes in Kindling, “Art can seem frivolous when faced with unending assault on animal lives that has reached exponential proportion. Art will not save these lives or stop these systems. But it will do the quiet, slow, subterranean work... Art seeks, makes and shares meaning between us humans.” In engaging with her work, she invites us into this task of meaning-making, to participate in conceiving another way to relate to the animal others with whom we are fated on this Earth.