Lin May Saeed: Arrival of the Animals

Softcover | 19.05 x 1.27 x 24.77 cm | 144

Yale University Press | 2020 | 9780300250862

German artist Lin May Saeed (b. 1973) grapples with the complex entanglements of humans and animals. Her work centres on the nonhuman animal and revisits, revises, or outright invents stories of animal subjugation, liberation, and harmonious cohabitation with humans, combining historical, mythical, and theological narratives with materials such as paper, steel, and Styrofoam. Empathy, humour, and lightness of touch combine with a radical reimagining of everyday life and a sense of how animality is intertwined with otherness.

The catalogue surveys Saeed’s work and thinking, positioning them within a broader discourse on animals and animality in art and culture. Its title alludes to the appearance of animals in humans’ modern moral consciousness, simultaneous with their departure in the current era of mass extinction; and its design places special emphasis on typography and lush close-up photography.