Events

Portable Cow Exhibition
February 18 @ 8:00 am - March 3 @ 5:00 pm

“Portable Cow,” an exhibition in conjunction with a symposium (Feb. 18–20) of the same name, will be on view Feb. 18–28 in Gallery 181, located on the first floor of the College of Design. Gallery hours are 8 a.m.–5 p.m. weekdays. A public reception will be from 5:30–7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20.
Conceived by social sciences and humanities scholar Camille Bellet, artist and anthropologist Liz Hingley and designer Edwin Mingard, “Portable Cow” aims to deepen understanding of the lived experiences of non-human animals, especially farmed animals; and to examine and potentially rethink human-animal relationships in farming contexts. Inspiration for “Portable Cow” comes from the creators’ experiences conducting research into the uses of closed-circuit cameras and sensing systems for managing cow lives on French and British dairy farms. They developed “Portable Cow” as a sort of exhibition-in-miniature, contained within a box inspired by the rounded corners and sleek design of the smartphones and robots many farmers use to monitor, manage and care for their dairy herds.
Incorporating maps, documents, farmer quotes and Hingley’s photographs, “Portable Cow” was created as an interactive object, designed for use by small groups of people in workshops and educational settings. With its visual, tactile and auditory elements, it encourages and fosters engagement, discussion and speculation around the multidimensional, multisensory experience of dairy farming, both for farmers and for cows. This exhibition brings elements of “Portable Cow” out of the box and into the gallery, encouraging visitors to reflect on questions the exhibition raises about cow lives, farmer experiences and the shared human-animal bonds that arise from and within the day-to-day realities of dairy farming.