From 22 February to 9 April 2025, EY PROJECTS is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition in Shanghai titled “I Am a (      ).” Featuring  works by Zhaochen Chen, Gulja Holland, Anissa Mack and Hao Ni, the exhibition investigates the multi-layered relationship between men and animals in the contemporary context. This marks the first presentation of Holland’s and Mack’s works in China.

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Since the Paleolithic era, humans have dependeded upon animals for work, transport, clothing, and leisure. In many senses, the entire field of anthropology is concerned with the passage from nature to culture, and the relationship between men and animals embodies the history of civilisation. The oldest known paintings found in caves depict bulls and horses. Today, animal imagery exists in every medium imaginable. Images necessitate the act of looking. Men scrutinize animals – whether chimpanzees in zoos, elephants in circuses, fish in aquariums or dogs at home. Through this gaze, humans become aware of themselves and their differences from animals. As initiators of the stare, humans claim power, seeking to judge and exploit these creatures.

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Throughout history, men hunt animals. Men sacrifice animals for religious and spiritual reasons. Men turn animals into metaphors for moral righteousness as well as decadence. In post-industrial societies, as John Berger claims, animals are treated as raw materials and manufactured commodities (Berger, 11). They become food sources, are sterilised, sexually isolated, deprived of habitats, and forced into roles as domestic companions or spectacles in zoos and aquariums.

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When animals transform into spectacle, they disappear (14). The need for hidden cameras, telescopic lenses, and flashlights to capture animals’ natural states ironically reinforces their invisibility. In I Am a ( ), artists employ diverse mediums to reveal animals’ otherwise invisible or forgotten existences. Imagine the gallery as a zoo: Zhaochen Chen’s installation I Caught You mimics humanity’s scrutinising gaze toward other species; Gulja Holland’s paintings foreground animal subjects whose eyes return the viewer’s gaze; Hao Ni’s works explore how pets and owners mutually shape each other’s identities; Anissa Mack uses mylar balloons and helium tanks to critique the treatment of animals as soulless props.

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The exhibition intentionally recreates the experience of visiting a zoo — moving from cage to cage, pausing at one "specimen" before the next — yet replaces live animals with artistic representations. By inviting audiences to stare at these works, the show questions anthropocentrism. As ethologist Frans de Waal provokes: Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are?

Bibliography

Berger, John. Why Look at Animals?. Penguin Books, 2009.

ARTISTS