As Jill and I analyze the endless and often contradictory facets of humans’ relationship to animals we are both pensive and charmed by a child’s perception of animals. At some point in our pasts, we all imagined animals as happy and knowing beings with families, friends, and stories of adventure. Opossum is an installation which has had several different installations but this Child’s Room version at 500X best illustrates a young one’s enchantment with animals. We created a set-like installation of a child’s bedroom with various unrealistic representations of bunnies, bears, lambs, elephants and other animals in all media–designed wallpaper, ceramic ‘stuffed’ animals, found objects, and a taxidermied opossum climbing over the bed so that a viewer can reflect on changes in their perception of animals in their own lifetime. The last five images show a previous installation of Opossum at Gallery 219.
