Minami Nishinaga: I am afraid of dogs

About

With her anthropology studies background and her innate obsession with tiny details in life, Minami Nishinaga seeks to understand the essence of living, language and social interactions by expressing them through her art. Her way of communicating these social and cultural findings includes using food, building miniature sculptures, and making objects.
Her audio work I am afraid of dogs takes form of a small melodrama or dada anecdote about her encountering the petrifying dog and finding getaway from the situation in imagining she is walking on the fashion show runway. In Prague it is easy to feel intimidated not just by enormous number of dogs but also by unspoken imperative to feel good around them. As she feels that her fear of dogs is hard to communicate with their owners she turns her attention to dogs themselves. For Minami dogs operate as an ultimate non-human Other, a canvas for projecting our subjective thoughts without fully understanding of their own agenda. Dogs are considered as one of the few species with developed ability to communicate with humans and love for dogs is often associated with general love for nature and capability for empathy. On the other hand dogs proficiency in being a “good boy” was paid by the price of more than questionable ethic of breeding and universal domination of people over them. In this context to play personal EDM track in ones head as reaction to dogs gaze has same legitimacy as any other case of dealing with complicated interspecies communication by imposing human culture on animals. It is not the first time when shallow pop culture proved to be a good mediator in situations which include too many contradictions.
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Minami Nishinaga (*1995) is a Master student of Sculpture studio at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. She wishes to be a poet someday, but so far she is just poetic or “potetic”.

You are welcome to use your own headphones.