Currently, the organisational culture of Applied Arts’ spaces is bound by interlinked, oppressive/privileged systems using terms such as the ableist ”handmade”. This article details using Intuitive Interspecies Communication (IIC) to uncloak the proficient and multitudinous making skills of nonhuman-animals, from their own viewpoint. This simultaneously acknowledges individual nonhuman-animal artisanship and dismantles oppressive arts language.
IIC is one of my innate skills. Using unstructured IIC interviews, nonhuman-animal artisans explain their materials and modalities. Acting as a transcriber and reflective/reflexive practitioner, I then create art jewellery to disseminate concepts from the interview data.
Making as directed from the perspective of nonhuman-animal artisans reveals multiple oppressive/privileged biases ingrained in the Applied Arts, impacting how we attribute objects made by nonhuman-animals and those created by humans with hands-free technology. The resulting non-bodycentric language provides an environment where all making is valid.
Centralising nonhuman-animal voices and reframing their “instinctually”-made objects as decisionmade recognises “universal multispecies creativity” (Gigliotti, 2022). This engenders compassion for fellow makers of all species oppressed by the Applied Arts’ kyriarchal systems.
