Can such a situation generate a healthy empathic relationship?, 1997
Digital print, 100 x 100cm

 

Can such a situation generate a healthy empathic relationship? consists of a series of photographs of dogs added onto a background of a B movie-style living room. The work is inspired by a Philippe Dick’s novel that tells of a universe in which humans, deprived of their pets, pride themselves, within the social dynamics in which they live, on androids shaped like sheep. The reference is clear: the cloned Yorkshire terriers printed in this work are a laboratory- created dog breed. Here, a dimension similar to that imagined by the writer is evoked, but the story begins to overlap with our reality. The artist explains: «suddenly it seemed to me that we had already arrived at that reality, that world of extreme loneliness that forces us to produce animals, pretending they are real». 

From one of her earliest works, the artist embarked on a search of seemingly distant worlds that turn out to be closely related to us. 

[quoted from an interview by Daniela Bigi with Sarah Ciracì, transcribed in the text Mondi probabili realtà impossibili, Selene Edizioni, Milano, 2000]