I Love Animals

Description

How do we teach children about animals, really?

While animals are often much-loved characters in children’s cartoons, books and films, they’re also a part of our food source. This paradoxical ‘love,’ both selective and contradictory, is not a new phenomenon, but one which only gains in absurdity together with the industrialization of food production.

As our populations move towards globalization and urbanization, there is increasingly a deep chasm between people and their food source. An animal becomes less of a living, breathing being and more a sanitized, shaped, and packaged object. The friendly, happy animals presented in our books have seemingly no relationship to our hamburgers and hotdogs.

In her photobook I ♥ Animals, artist Katherine Oktober Matthews uses biting humor to audaciously strip away the veneer of civilization. In the playful format of a children’s board book, mimicking the feeling of a happy tale to read at bedtime, I ♥ Animals is sure to get under your skin.

I ♥ Animals was shortlisted for the Arles Book Awards 2017 in the Photo-Text category, and was selected for inclusion in the photobook exhibition of Athens Photo Festival 2018.

Board book
12 pages
6.5 x 6.5 inches (16.5 x 16.5 cm)
8 full color images
Publication Date: May 30, 2017
€ 15