What's On - Wild at Heart: Animal Metaphors in Illustration

An exhibition by DJCAD level 2 illustration students at Dundee Central Library Leisure reading foyer Monday 27 January until 5 February 2026.

With a public roundtable with the students in Central Library conference room on 27th January at 6pm, all welcome.

What do animals have to do with the human condition? On the 80th anniversary of Animal Farm last year, illustration students reflected on the tradition of animals standing in for people in literature through their own creative project.
They addressed how animals have been used as a formal device to explore human behaviour and character since prehistory, e.g. Greek myths exploring the origins of humanity, Aesop’s Fables teaching morality and common sense, Wind in the Willows revelling in a bucolic adventure yarn, American ideals of rugged individualism in Call of the Wild, Animal Farm demonstrating the relationship between power dynamics on a personal and societal scale and, more recently, Nightbitch ripping up gender and societal expectations in the context of early parenthood chaos. They addressed why animal metaphors been such a perennial favourite amongst those wishing to explore and describe the human condition.

Information published by Leisure and Culture Dundee.