Words and photos: Urban Animal Agency
Roughly eighty percent of Canada’s human inhabitants now live in urban areas, the same is true for other 'developed' nations. In the next thirty years, developing countries are expected to follow suit accommodating similar ratios of people living in cities and their suburbs. It seems that humans are moving away from landscapes where we come into frequent contact with a diverse range of other animals. We no longer directly witness the effects that weather, plants and other animals have on our lives. Here in the city, among the buildings and in the alleys, we often forget the ways that our lives are entangled with other beings. In human-constructed environments, we often fail to notice that a myriad of animals survive and even thrive in the spaces we create.
Take the coyote, for example, which has expanded its range from the deserts and grasslands of the mid-west United States to the entirety of North America in the last two hundred years. As one of North America’s largest urban predators, the coyote has become an important part of many urban ecologies, as they hunt rodents in soccer fields, golf courses, farmlands and graveyards.
The Urban Animal Agency is a collective of artists and ecologists interested in the ways that people and other animals coexist and collectively define urban spaces. Through research projects, public engagements and art-based interventions, we look to reimagine concepts of ‘nature’ and ‘wilderness’ that separate us from other animals. In so doing, we look to illuminate the city as a shared space, and to reflect on what it means to consider ourselves urban animals.
We are excited to welcome others to our provisional headquarters in Stanley Park, at the A-Frame near Second Beach. Please stop by and take a look, share your urban animal stories, and help us catalogue a wide variety of urban animal artifacts that have been collected by UAA agents and others. Our next open house is on Tuesday Aug 18th at 8 PM.
(before the free outdoor movie night at Ceperly Meadows).
The Urban Animal Agency is working in partnership with Stanley Park Ecology Society, with support from the Vancouver Park Board - Arts, Culture and Engagement, and City of Vancouver Cultural Services for the rest of the summer on the A-Frame Project.
Dan Straker
