Tiffany Deater: What Lives Underneath

Nature can be beautiful and majestic, but it can also be cruel and unforgiving. Here, we tell stories about wildlife, but how does wildlife help us reflect on our lives?

Throughout art history, megafauna like bison, elk, and big horn sheep have been immortalized by artists, but what about microfauna? Are they any less critical to our ecosystems? Are their hardships, beauty, and struggles any less worthy of attention than those of the bear or moose?

Tiffany Deater seeks to answer these questions and more. Through her work, she aims to connect the viewer with other forms of life, sometimes by journeying through their perspectives to help us reimagine our relationships with animals, the environment, and one another, and by decentering the human perspective. The three videos in this exhibition explore how we empathize with other animals, how we value some over others, what insight we can gain from their world, and how to find our human place in the universe.

The videos are meant to challenge. They are intended to be uncomfortable. They may be hard to watch. It is worth it, because by sitting through that discomfort, Deater offers us a shortcut to understanding. Instead of waiting hours in the field, watching and listening on level with the ant and worm ourselves, she creates these moments and webs, that allow us to see a world where we are displaced, and where the beetle becomes as relatable as a dog or a cat.