Animal Lover is a body of work by artist Julie Andreyev, often produced in collaboration with companion dogs Tom and Sugi. The projects converge on questions and critiques addressing contemporary relationships between humans and nonhuman animals.

The Animal Lover projects critique long-standing beliefs about nonhumans as being ‘less than human’ and as a resource for human use-value. The objectives of the projects are to depict the nonhumans’ subjective experience of the world, thereby proposing an account of animal agency, subjectivity and creativity. The Animal Lover projects contribute towards an ethics of compassion and a consideration on the intrinsic value of nonhuman individuals. 

When Andreyev works collaboratively with Tom and Sugi, ethical treatment, fun and challenge are employed in the process. The projects use aleatoric methods; the dogs participate directly in the research and content creation of the work by determining the specific responses to the task at hand. This material is then used in the production stages of the projects.

contact: julie @ animallover.ca

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.