BNMI Current Co-production Programs

Artist: Bill Burns (Toronto, Canada)
Project Title: How to Help Animals Escape from Natural History

Dates: September 5 – 16, 2006

In fall of 2006, writer and new media artist Bill Burns returned to The Banff Centre to continue work on his ongoing thematic project, How toHelp Animals Escape from Natural History which he began here in Banff in 1998. Burns’ work is a comment on the state and concerns around drugs, ecology, animals, and safety gear, which over the past 20 years has consisted of writing, drawings, photography, multiples, and conceptual multimedia.

How to Help Animals Escape from Natural History is playful parody which through humor addresses the needs of animals living in a new global economy. It takes the form of an ever increasingly familiar automated phone service program. Callers become an audience to the piece as they are guided through three stages of information determined by their response to the automated choices. Compiled of over 110 options, the caller is directed into three streams: Part one of the voice mail system provides advice on how to help animals, and ordering instructions regarding rescue kits, safe passage, and the care of imperiled animals. Part two of the system instructs callers to sponsor safety fear for small animals. Part three provides detailed directions on how to underwrite your life insurance or establish a foundation to help animals in posterity.

Bill Burn’s work has been shown and collected internationally, including works in the Tate Gallery (London, U.K.), Galerie du Tableau (Marseilles, France), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands), and the 2003 Havana Biennial, to name a few. Aside from being a respected visual artist Bill’s writings have appeared in numerous publications and catalogues. He currently lives in Toronto, Ontario and sits as an adjunct faculty member at the Department of Graduate Studies at York University.