Creative Narrative - Kit Leffler My work contests the belief that humankind is the pre-eminent species, and it disputes

that humankind has uninterrupted dominion over the natural environment. These are some of the questions I ask: What do we owe other animals and/or our environment? Why do we [humans] disassociate ourselves from animals? What does our human conception of the environment say about us as animals? Reproduction and context are central to my artistic process. An original does not exist in a vacuum, but takes meaning from its context. An image may be copied exactly, but placing it in a new context can generate a cultural dialogue. Adapting theories of visual anthropology I prompt the viewer to re-examine beliefs and preconceptions about humankind and exploitation of nature. My aim is to promote cross-cultural comparative analysis. My process is to alter the cultural resonance of images familiar in my society and in so doing invite consideration of the repercussions of our behaviour on others. In selecting images for my process I examine the image itself, its provenance, and its context. I consider the distribution and purpose of the image: how do people receive this image? What is the photographs purpose? How will people read it, and its content? I seek out a settled cultural meaning to question. In the process I aim at an objective examination of my own cultural assumptions; and I propose a dialogue of new cultural possibility. In so doing, with the ironic possibility of multiple reproduction, I illustrate the global society within which I exist: one in which a photograph captioned Chicken Nuggets Are Made of this Pink Goop gets 125,613 blog hits, where soft toy tigers outnumber real tigers, where YouTube videos of tsunamis go viral, and where the last Pinta Giant Tortoise awaits its inevitable extinction. My work invites the viewer to re-consider nature: nature as instinctive behaviour, and nature as the material word independent of human activity. The human drive to exert power over other species and on the natural environment prompts moral questioning: is this drive a natural human instinct requiring no justification, or is there something more complex to discuss?