Carnival of the Oppressed

Beast fables have historically used animals as allegorical stand-ins for humans rising up against power. In stories like Animal Farm, Watership Down, Babe: Pig in the City and Over the Hedge, the characters grapple with human issues of corruption, oppression, abuse of power, habitat destruction and propaganda. Animals were frequently used as a site of rebellion in early computer-generated cartoons as Jack Halberstam's reflections in The Queer Art of Failure.

Carnival of the Oppressed features creatures going about their day. They work hard. They buy things to let others know that they work hard. They have flattened their identities into neat, communicable packages. They TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES. They vote.

They are in the pre-contemplative stage of rebellion.

The creatures in these images have devalued the communal and collective in favour of the pursuit of productivity and self-optimisation. Their trauma can only be used for growth; resistance and pain is akin to illness. They are disconnected from any radical or collective sense of rebellion.

Carnival of the Oppressed asks if these creatures are free, and if not, what might it mean (or take) for them to be liberated?

Decorative beaded unicorn in a mixed media art display with colorful textured background and frame.

Beaded art of a pink frog with large eyes and a red tongue, with the name 'HUBRIS' spelled above it in yellow beads, inside a green embroidery hoop.

Beaded embroidery of a black ant with red and yellow flame wings, with the text "LET'S GET WARM" in beads, on a blue checkered fabric background.

Beaded embroidery of a pink flamingo with the phrase 'you can't stop a frog' in yellow beads below it, in a pink circular embroidery hoop.

Decorative circular wall art with colorful beads and stitching, featuring the phrase 'You can be a winner' and mouse embroidery, accented with small gold star and moon shapes.

A beaded artwork featuring a cartoonish worm with pink and white beads, green bead fringe border, and two red beaded squares with white text. The top left squared reads, 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' and the bottom right reads, 'If you cut us i