Wild animals
Guangzhou Photo Biennial 2005
In the name of the modernism and civilization, the cities are equipped today with zoological gardens. Even in China, which one cannot however describe as a developed country, the least town of some importance has a zoo equipped with ordinary animals. In our contemporary society, the zoo thus became a necessary sign of beeing civilized. In order to offer the public, a so-called "knowledge" of nature, one tears off animals from their natural environment.
However, strangely enough, this act of selfishness, which testifies to human self-centredness, does not raise a sharp protest and is generally not even refuted. In his work "animal Brutality", the Beijing photographer Xue Ting gives humanity to the locked animals. Don't their attitude, their behaviour, with all the feelings which they express, sadness, discouragement, resignation, reflect ours? Xue Ting likes to treat the animals as human beeings.



