Barbara Daniels Imagines Humans and Animals Reversing Roles

Archive feature, first published 2018-03-03.

Humans have developed powerful technologies and institutions that shape the lives of other species. They've managed to make use of everything in their surroundings. Some of their exploits have led them to turn earth into hell for other creatures.

Artist Barbara Daniels is turning the veil by creating a parallel world where humans reverse roles with animals. What could happen if animals had had the same privileges with us? It's one of the questions that will run your mind when you go through these terrifying illustrations.

Follow the role reversal all the way through

Barbara Daniels' premise swaps the positions of humans and animals. Its force comes from keeping an activity recognizable while changing who has control. For each image, identify the ordinary practice being referenced before deciding what judgment the picture makes about it. Then ask whether the reversal changes your response and why. It can reveal an assumption you had not noticed, but the illustration is still an argument made through imagination. A particular scene should be discussed on its own terms rather than treated as evidence for every claim about human behavior.

A closer look

Identify the everyday practice being reversed before judging the scene. Then ask what changes when the vulnerable figure is human. The comparison is the argument; readers can examine its limits as well as its force.

Reference: Instagram

About the artist

Barbara Daniels is an Irish artist who shares her work on Instagram and Facebook as Barbara Daniels Art. Her series takes specific human uses of animals and turns them around: tigers training people in a circus, foxes wearing human skins, a fast-food bucket of “Kentucky Fried Human”, canned hunting, and product-safety tests performed on people. Naming the practice behind each picture makes it easier to discuss which comparisons land and which do not.

Sources: Demotivateur, 29 June 2018

The reversal asks who normally has the choice

Daniels keeps familiar activities recognizable while changing which figure controls the situation. That makes power, dependence and consent easier to notice within the illustration. A useful discussion starts with the particular practice shown, then considers where the comparison is persuasive and where the differences between the imagined scene and real circumstances matter.