When revisiting my research statement from last year, I found myself returning to the ideas of care and failure within social sculpture. These themes continue to shape my practice and felt essential to include in my research paper. However, my section on animals in art grew too large for the word count and began to pull the paper away from its main focus. I removed it, but after simplifying and editing it, the section stands on its own and is worth sharing here.
My interest in non-human metaphors comes from noticing how artists and writers use animals to express political tension, historical memory and emotional states that might otherwise be silenced. These strategies reveal relationships between power, vulnerability and resistance, and they raise questions about ethics and communication that deeply influence my practice.
Animals and Non-human Metaphors in the Work of Joseph Beuys and Tania Bruguera
Animals sit at the centre of Joseph Beuys’s practice, shaping his ideas on power, vulnerability and transformation. The coyote in I Like America and America Likes Me symbolised Indigenous people and the pre-colonial landscape. For Beuys, it embodied an idealised belief in the intelligence and vitality of the natural world. The coyote represented resistance to American imperialism during the Vietnam War and carried his hopes for future healing between cultures and species.
In How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, Beuys moved slowly through the gallery with his face covered in honey and gold leaf, whispering explanations to the dead animal in his arms. The hare, associated with intuition, knowledge and resurrection, became a metaphor for what cannot be reached by rational language. Marina Abramović’s re-performance in 2005 affirmed the lasting resonance of this symbolic encounter between human and non-human life.
Where Beuys often turned to animals as partners in myth, intuition and healing, Tania Bruguera approaches them in relation to power, authority and political memory. Her interventions expose the structures that shape public life and the institutional spaces that maintain them.
In Tatlin’s Whisper 5, Bruguera used two mounted police officers and their horses to carry out crowd-control tactics inside Tate Modern. The horses were trained for authority and control and entered the space with an unmistakable sense of force. Their presence transformed the gallery from a site of passive viewing into a charged environment where visitors were physically steered, separated and confronted. The work made visible the techniques of state power, such as dispersal, redirection and intimidation, which usually operate outside cultural institutions.
This action gained further weight when placed in the context of the building itself. Tate Modern stands on a history shaped by colonial wealth. Henry Tate’s fortune, although not derived from enslaved ownership, came from the sugar industry, which relied on enslaved labour in the Caribbean. The arrival of horses trained for policing, inside a space funded by a colonial economy, formed a powerful collision of past and present. Visitors were not only witnessing a performance but experiencing an enactment of authority within a space built from historical exploitation. The work stripped away any illusion of institutional neutrality and revealed how cultural venues remain entwined with systems of control.
Bruguera’s The Burden of Guilt, created between 1997 and 1999, offers another approach to the animal body. Drawing on a Cuban story of Indigenous resistance, she performed with a lamb carcass around her neck and ate soil mixed with saltwater. The lamb suggested innocence and sacrifice, becoming a sign of communal grief and historical responsibility. Eating earth became a way to carry memory physically, as if the body itself were absorbing history and mourning.
Bruguera and Beuys both use animals to raise moral, political and spiritual questions, yet their motivations diverge. Beuys turns towards healing, intuition and mythic reconciliation. Bruguera challenges institutional power, colonial violence and endurance under authority. In both cases, animals operate as active agents of meaning rather than decorative symbols. Their presence forces audiences to confront issues that are emotional, ethical and political.
Although the symbolism in both artists’ use of animals is powerful, I remain uneasy about the incorporation of real animals and human parts in art. Ethical questions arise about the process, the treatment of bodies and the implications of using them. I also wonder whether there are clear rules or guidelines, and how far artists are permitted to go.
Animal Metaphors in Literature
My favourite use of animals since childhood has always been in literature, storytelling and cartoons (Oh God, who does not like Shaun the Sheep!).. It feels playful, imaginative and often a very indirect way to speak the truth, especially when living under a dictatorship or in a place where free speech is a crime. Writers across cultures have used non-human characters to challenge authority and reflect on the human condition. Here are three examples from different cultures that I read and appreciate for their political and social insights.
In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the animals rise up in search of equality, only for their revolution to collapse into tyranny. The pigs become the new political leaders, while the other animals represent broader society. I cannot help thinking about the Arab Spring when I read it. As someone who witnessed those moments of hope, I later realised how much of it was false, planned in advance and driven by forces far beyond ordinary people. Many were drawn into it with naivety, without knowledge, and without considering the consequences.
Kafka’s The Metamorphosis uses Gregor Samsa’s transformation into an insect to explore alienation and the erosion of identity. His inability to communicate and his slow disappearance from the concerns of his family reflect the conditions that made him feel powerless long before he changed form. It reminds me a great deal of social life in Europe. There is a sense of absence that hides beneath the appearance of belonging, and a feeling that you are present, yet not fully seen.
Kalila wa Dimna (کلیله و دمنه), is a collection of fables in which animals take on human roles and dilemmas. The book contains fifteen chapters filled with stories that feature animal characters as heroes, advisers and rulers. One of the central figures is the lion, who appears as a king, attended by his loyal ox and two jackals of the title, Kalila and Dimna, serve both as narrators and as key characters within the tales. The work most likely originated from an ancient Indian text, translated to Arabic and later travelled across cultures and languages.
The stories appear simple but contain hidden meanings that allowed authors to criticise rulers while avoiding punishment. The animal characters become subtle tools for examining authority and ethical responsibility. For me, this is one of the best examples of how wisdom was taught during the Islamic Golden Age. It shows that people have always found ways to teach, influence and communicate important ideas while reducing the risks that come with speaking openly.
Finally, in Orwell, animals reveal the collapse of idealism. In Kafka, they expose psychological and social erasure. In Kalila wa Dimna, they protect dissenting views. In Bruguera and Beuys, they carry political, spiritual and historical weight. Non-human imagery creates space for reflection on power, vulnerability and the possibility of transformation. It encourages viewers to reconsider the boundaries between human and animal, self and other, institution and individual.
Books :
Kafka, F.Metamorphosis. Franz Kafka
Munshi, N. Kalila and Dimna. Translated by W. Thackston.
Orwell, G. Animal farm.
Karema 