Bestiae is the photographic and audiovisual work that the artist Ruth Montiel Arias carried out between 2017 and 2018 thanks to the Vegap production grants 2017. The work reflects on animal domination through hunting, dialoguing between visual poetry and documental approaches.
During the development of Bestiae, Ruth Montiel Arias accompanied several groups of hunters in different provinces of the Spanish state. This has led her to learn first-hand about the methods and execution of this practice as well as, after hours of conversation, analyzing the arguments that are used to hold an outdated custom not approved by today's society.
Bestiae reflects on animal murder and the "animality" of the act itself, dialoguing between the real and the symbolic, inheritance and intellect, culture and tradition. With a language in which own images coexist with manipulated ones, this essay proposes an analysis of masculine domination over the animal, and how it is related through gender, art, war and disease based on a personal fusion between visual poetics and documentary language.
