Creatures in the Margins

Throughout human history, animals have been tied to visual and literary narratives across cultures, religions, and time periods. They have been protagonists in folklore and fables, spiritual deities, representations of power and nation, and fetishized tokens of exoticism. Within these stories, animals are rarely just animals. Rather, they are given human qualities in the form of emotions, beliefs, and ambitions—the fertile frog-headed Heqet of the Egyptian pantheon, the deceptive snake in the Garden of Eden, the prudent tortoise that raced the impatient hare. 

Responding to the Greater Orlando area’s library 2021 summer reading theme “Tails & Tales,” the exhibition Creatures in the Margins explores the relationship between animals and human conditions. Featuring works by Mary Russell Smith, Amy Sillman, Camille Henrot, and Gary Bolding, themes relating to war, punishment and reward, spirituality, and institutional power are considered in the guise of animals existing in the fantastical and natural world.   

How do the associations between animals and abstract ideas projected onto them shape their social perception and use? Which character traits are based less on nature and more on narratives in storybooks, sacred texts, and folklore? Visitors are invited to explore the different characters assembled in the exhibition and consider their individual interpretations of the animal kingdom based on a wholly human context.