The Piazza Gardens at MediaCityUK are soon going to be host to some very special visitors of the long-eared and fluffy-tailed variety, and we’d like you to help us give them a warm welcome.
Intrude by Sydney born, Tasmania-based Australian artist, Amanda Parer, sees a collection of 5 giant inflatable rabbits, hopping and popping up to the green spaces of MediaCityUK between the 12 – 27 December, as part of Lightwaves 2015, Salford Quays’ free digital light art festival.
They may look cute and cuddly, but the rabbits that make up Intrude also carry a serious message: our relationship with the natural world is a fragile one, and seemingly innocuous changes can have wide ranging effects, emphasised by the epic proportions of the rabbits’ 7m height.
In 1859, Thomas Austin, an English settler in Australia remarked, “The introduction of a few rabbits could do little harm and might provide a touch of home, in addition to a spot of hunting.” Fast forward nearly 150 years after his release of 24 rabbits into the wild, the rabbit population of Australia numbers in the region of 200 – 300 million, reaching 600 million at its peak in the early 20th century. The explosion of rabbits across the continent has caused widespread devastation to the native plant life and accelerated the loss of fertile topsoil, which takes hundreds of years to replace. As Parer explains in an interview with Kaltblut magazine,
“I enjoy using the rabbit in my work because it holds dual symbolism: one it is a cute, welcoming animal, reminding people of their childhood and the other is that it is an introduced species that has caused great destruction to the delicate Australian ecosystems.”
Amanda Parer’s illuminated rabbits will be a quirky presence at MediaCityUK during Lightwaves, glowing in the night, and dwarfing people on their way to and from work. Their unlikely presence will pay homage to their living breathing counterparts’ hardiness and ability to adapt to new environments, before they leave as suddenly as they arrive, hopping off to other, probably warmer and dryer, climes.
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