About

Discover a wild and wonderful menagerie of animals in this exhibition, incorporating multimedia interactives, moving image works, photography and drawings from the Gallery's collection. Explore how Australian and international contemporary artists use animals to communicate and share their ideas and experiences, create zoomorphic images using the Farsi script in the multimedia interactive Persian for kids and release animals back into their natural habitat in The call of the wild.

PIERRE BISMUTH

In his artwork The Jungle Book project, French artist Pierre Bismuth has created a new version of the Disney movie The Jungle Book in which each character speaks a different language. Alongside this video work, young visitors can also view a series of nineteen pencil drawings by the artist that depict the different characters from the film.

PARASTOU FOROUHAR

Parastou Forouhar, uses the script of Farsi, the language of Iran (once known as Persia), to create beautiful patterns and designs. The artist's drawing series Persian for beginners, which features different animals created from the Farsi lettering used to spell each animal's name, is on display in the space for young visitors to view. Children can also create their own Farsi animal using the Persian for kids multimedia interactive.

Screening in the gallery space is the artist's own animation – an idyllic scene of zoomorphic images in a wilderness also created from Farsi script

JUSTINE COOPER

In The call of the wild multimedia interactive, young visitors are invited to complete an activity set in a natural history museum corridor lined with cabinets. Using elements of popular children's games such as hide-and-seek, and memory and matching activities, The call of the wild invites children to set animals free from the museum and return them to their natural habitats.

Young visitors can also experience a number of large scale photographs and a video work from the artist's series 'Saved by science', which explores the storage areas of The American Museum of Natural History in New York, one of the most famous museums in the world.

PAOLA PIVI

Italian artist Paola Pivi creates strange and often funny scenes through photography, sculpture, installation and performance. In her artwork Paola uses animals to explore the way human beings relate to the world around them. As part of the exhibition, young visitors can admire the artist's large scale photograph One love which features 26 animals from all over the world gathered together in a green field.