Chosen Blindness

Bestiary Collective, comprised of Albuquerque-based artists and animal rights advocates David D’Agostino and Mark Dyke, are dedicated to revealing the trauma, tenacious survival, and demise of non-human species. Together they combined bronze and clay sculptures, photo dioramas, and sound art to produce the upcoming exhibition, Chosen Blindness, which opens January 7, 2023, at the Albuquerque Contemporary Art Center.

David D’Agostino met Mark three years ago and became captivated by the number of sheltered animals he and his wife, Jen Berol, have fostered and nurtured with neonatal care over the past eleven years. He was also completing research on the effect of climate-provoked diseases on wild and domestic animal health and survival.

Ivan Boyd, Chosen Blindness curator, said, “Humans are addicted to exploiting nonhumans for food, sport, and profit. The collective’s art work reveals the psychological uncertainty and anxiety arising from underlying power structures; specifically, the pathos experienced by animals lost in the never-land of lost habitats, hyper-consumption, and ever-evolving anthropogenic disease, like brain worm and other fatal pathogens. The artists hope to instill compassion for the suffering of species attempting to survive this bewildering world, and to take action for habitat protection and animal justice.”