Challenging Anthropocentrism through Counter Art Histories and Non-Human Narratives

The PhD project of visual artist EvaMarie Lindahl is a practice-based thesis within visual art and critical animal studies that is engaged in decentring the human in art history in favour of non-human animals. Lindahl’s work resulted in a thesis centered around her concept Resistance Within the Museum Fauna. The fauna of the art museum is not only a term developed in this research project because of the necessity to hold space for a group of non-human animals whose commonality is that their habitat is the art museum, but also the title of a series of artworks where the core strategy is to embrace anthropomorphism as a radical and empathic tool to envision and imagine new art history where non-human animals are at the centre. Lindahl’s thesis is written from the firm and unwavering conviction of the rights of all living beings, and that the killing of non-human animals within the production system of visual art needs to end. Therefore, the dissertation ends with a toolkit of exercises written to be used when visiting the art museum. The aim of the toolkit is to create a feeling with another instead of looking at others, and the courage to engage in artworks from a position of empathy towards all species.