The exhibition Peripheral Beings considers interspecific relationships surrounding human consumption and laboratory testing, and explores the false distance created between humans and consumable species. As they continue to exist on the periphery of our collective psyche and imaginations, this exhibition articulates them materially as a series of immersive sculptures of caged and gastronomically transformed species.

Drawing on animated foods from popular culture and history, these hybrid bodies demand a reckoning. At once tragic, grotesque, and sympathetic, the work operates within the emotional complexity of consumption that is suppressed by the corporate food industry.

Presented collectively, the sculptural works and drawings in Peripheral Beings generate myriad questions surrounding lives that remain hidden from us yet continue to impact us on an individual and daily basis. The works’ careful material crafting and fantastic nature encourage active engagement with, and reflection on, uncomfortable topics and complicities.

-Edited from the statement by the artist.

EXHIBITION BROCHURE

Jude Griebel is a Canadian sculptor working between Calgary, Alberta and New York City. He creates intensively detailed figurative sculptures and drawings that visualize our entanglement with the surrounding world. Griebel has completed numerous international residencies where he has researched depleted ecologies and industrial agricultural sites. He is the co-founder and director of The Museum of Fear and Wonder, in Alberta; a privately run museum that highlights the narrative and psychological qualities of expressive, historic craft.