Rachel Hope Allan - Featured Portfolio

what becomes of the inbred & spoonfed

Interview by Eleanor Ainge Roy for PhotoForum, 18 September 2020

Rachel Hope Allan is a Dunedin-based artist and senior lecturer in photography and electronic art at the Dunedin School of Art. In her 25-year career Allan’s work has become renowned for its intimate, voyeuristic quality, and it’s soulful meditations on the bonds that divide and unite the human and animal kingdoms.

Allan invited us into her Dunedin home to discuss the portfolio “what becomes of the inbred & spoonfed”. Joining us were her three Sphynx cats, and two dogs, Jellybean and Primrose, all of whom listened with great interest to the conversation. (Jellybean has since passed away).

So much of your work features or incorporates animals, in both natural and man-made environments. Where did this interest arise?

I’ve always been fascinated by this idea that we [humans] have a long, long relationship with animals. Whether we see them as a food source or we see ourselves in them, such as some first nations people, who believe they are part animal. There’s the Chinese zodiac too, and cave people would draw images of animals. 

Quite often when you talk about people they’ll be described as ‘nervous like a rabbit, or bird-like’. Either we’re making animals seem human or we’re making us seem more animalistic. It’s this weird thing that happens.

Do you feel you’re a version of an animal?

As a child animals were always my best friends. There was a relationship you had with them that was unlike anything you had with anyone else. There was never an absence of that primal thing where there is human; but also the beast that lives with human -  whether for mousing or protection or whatever.

I always remember the animals more than the humans [in my childhood]. Which is a little bit fucked-up.

Who was a significant animal from your childhood?

I remember as a child I was going to get a pony - finally able to get a pony! And then there was this pony standing there and it was missing an eye. I was about 6 or 7. And I knew immediately as soon as I saw it that I wasn’t going to be allowed to get this pony.  Knowing “oh my god, I want this but I won’t be allowed to have it”. And I don’t want anyone else to have it, and nobody else will want it.

I have this thing: ‘There’s something wrong with it, I want to love it.’

I didn’t get the pony. My parents said no. 

So there’s always that weird trauma [with animals]. People always say a really good way to teach children about death is to get them animals. They learn really, really quickly about loss.

Growing up in rural Fielding, I remember field-trips to the meatworks. When I was about 7 they took us to the meatworks and we saw the animals unloaded, chopped up. We also went to a chicken farm. 

When did you become a vegetarian?

I remember not being allowed to be a vegetarian for a very long time. And then that ongoing debate. But probably from about 12. I occasionally went - ‘it’s fine’.  But eventually, ‘no, it’s really not fine.’

The images in this portfolio feature a zebra, flamingos and a hippo, among others.  How did you photograph them, and where?

Most of them are from various zoos around the world I have visited. The first time I went to a zoo [since I was a child] was in the Netherlands. I spent hours in front of a tank watching these seals dive. And there’s always this push and pull for me - from ‘oh my god, I am seeing this thing I love’, to ‘oh my god, I am seeing this thing I love that is held within confines that are emotionally and physically and mentally unforgiving and not giving them all the stuff that they need.’

Yes, they’re feeding them and providing them with shelter but it’s… just the basics.

You still sound pretty conflicted about zoos, even though you visit so many?

Well, we did this to humans as well right?. Humans were shown around the world as spectacles.  And it’s not that far removed now with animals, from when we were doing this to humans. It’s not that much difference.

What equipment or technology do you use?

Most of the animal images are taken on an iphone because people don’t see you taking the pictures. I like the interaction that people have with the animals, and there is that question: who is in what cage?

[I use] the Iphone because it is portable, you put it in your pocket and no-one sees it but it’s always there. You look like a standard tourist. And I don’t think it matters how the image is taken or what it is on. We’re moving on a bit from the ‘digital is death’ paranoia.

Digital is so fluid and it’s not about death, it’s actually about life. I love thinking about digital photography as providing life; there’s no stop, it is continuous. 

How was your lockdown and how is your work practice continuing during the pandemic? 

This work has been looking at what’s happening overseas, and most of the images were created while I was overseas. So I have been wondering, how will I continue that practice, while I am constrained to New Zealand?

Also, I am taking a lot of photos of my cats [this year]. I have taken photographs of them before, but it’s weird right, taking [artistic] images of your own animals? But there is something beautiful about their bodies.  I have been looking at them more in a life drawing way and scientific way - their shape, shadow and musculature. They become more like animals than pets.

And then reflecting on them as beasts. And they are confined, and I think about that confinement.

How do you feel about meeting your own animals needs in captivity?

It is a weird pain that you feel. The last time I went anywhere for this series was an aquarium in Tokyo on my birthday, and I spent the whole time in tears. It was on top of a 65 story building, and it was just horrific, the whole thing. Otters being led around on harnesses among crowds of people, and seals in small tubes.

And I thought ‘I can't do this anymore’. The money I am paying isn't helping, and is my work helping or not?

I want to be surrounded by these beasts, but I feel bad. I have these sphynx that are inherently inbred and have issues; they can’t go outside, that have special dietary requirements. They have been bred for specific reasons and I feel like I am perpetuating their suffering in some way.

Same with Primrose being a purebred rottweiler. Humankind are not doing the right thing by having these weird breeding facilities and tastes.

In saying that, they are very happy animals. I give them the best life I can.

Eleanor Ainge Roy is the New Zealand correspondent for The Guardian UK

https://rachelhopeallan.com/

Content created with support from Creative New Zealand