Wafaa Bilal Visit Summary

I really enjoyed Wafaa Bilal's visit. I found him to be incredibly generous, intelligent and down to earth. I presented him with my ongoing project about people and their pets, Rudiments of Thought and Joy Untroubled. He expressed interest in the subject matter and asked me a lot of questions regarding my personal connection to the work and questions that challenged the nature and meaning of the work.

Some of the questions he raised were Is this work about the human-animal relationship? Is it really just about the pet owner? Is it about the animal at all? Is this work a self portrait? Do pet owners mimic their pets and not the other way around?

Some issues we discussed included vulnerability, comfort, companionship, domestication, class level, personal issues, pets and owners mirroring one another, etc. He challenged me to really figure out what this work is about. Is it really about the relationship/companionship between a pet and an owner? Is it about the pet owner solely? Is it about the pet? Could this be a project of self portraiture?

Bilal made a suggestion to examine the breech of contract when animals/pets are abandoned by humans (on an individual level as well as a community) who are responsible for domesticating and therefore caring for them. While I was not really into that idea because I don't want to make a political statement or critique on society, (not to mention it would broaden this work to such a degree when I really want to focus in on very specific avenues of the pet culture), I could see myself exploring that issue in a separate project in the future. Bilal mentioned, as he also did in his talk, Adorno. He reminded me that everything is political. Even in trying to make something unpolitical, you are creating politics. While, at this point, I'm not ready to take the project to a darker side, Bilal did give me some great things to think about and ponder. I thoroughly appreciated his visit, criticisms, and his speech.

I shared with Bilal the next big image that I want to conquer which he seemed into. There are about 10 universities in the US that have pet friendly dorms. College students can actually bring their pets to live on campus, in a dorm, with them. This new trend is fascinating as it raises all kinds of issues revolving around pet restrictions, safety, fear, comfort zone, strict guidelines and rules, liability and responsibility. I would like to explore this new phenomena and hopefully gain access to photograph one of these dorms and their residents.