“Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives” addresses animal rights and the welfare of non-human beings in an anthropocentric world that exploits animals and renders them invisible. Inspired by John Berger's essay of the same name, the exhibition examines the changing relationship between humans and animals and raises questions about ethics, violence, and responsibility.
The exhibition highlights systematic forms of animal exploitation and invites us to see animals not as “others” but as sentient beings with their own dignity and intrinsic value. Spanning several museum levels, it covers everything from colonial and industrial violence to contemporary urban realities to poetic, speculative, and hopeful visions of an interspecies coexistence in the future. With works by numerous international artists, such as David Claerbout's animated film “The pure necessity” (2016), EMΣT places ecological justice and the rights of non-human life at the center of its program and emphasizes that climate and environmental justice is inconceivable without the inclusion of animals.
