The Portable Cow Exhibition

Portable Cow, an exhibition held in conjunction with a symposium of the same name (February 18–20), was on view from February 18 to 27 in Gallery 181, located on the first floor of the College of Design. Gallery hours were 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. A public reception took place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 20.

Conceived by social sciences and humanities scholar Camille Bellet, artist and anthropologist Liz Hingley, and designer Edwin Mingard, Portable Cow aimed to deepen understanding of the lived experiences of non-human animals, particularly farmed animals, and to examine and potentially rethink human-animal relationships within farming contexts. The exhibition was inspired by the creators’ research into the use of closed-circuit cameras and sensing systems to manage cow lives on French and British dairy farms.

Developed as an interactive, miniature exhibition contained within a box—modeled after the sleek, rounded design of smartphones and agricultural robots used in modern dairy farming—Portable Cow incorporated maps, documents, farmer quotes, and Hingley’s photographs. It was originally designed for small-group use in workshops and educational settings, providing a visual, tactile, and auditory experience to spark dialogue and reflection.

The gallery exhibition brought key elements of Portable Cow out of the box and into the public space, encouraging visitors to engage with the multisensory and multidimensional realities of dairy farming. The show invited reflection on cow lives, farmer experiences, and the complex human-animal relationships that form in daily agricultural life.