So what are animals for? The rejection of the assumption that all ecosystems remain subservient to our own requirements is at the heart of this exhibition at the Sidney Cooper Gallery, supported by Canterbury Christ Church University’s Ecology Research Group and Geography and Life Sciences departments. An examination of the crossroads between the natural world and the man-made, Red List combines museology and the language of natural history with art. On entering the gallery we are eased into the museum experience by Richard Barnes’s highly intriguing photographs; scenes of dioramas and stage sets, with the curtains pulled back to reveal the secrets and inner workings of the world’s museums. Ben Rowley’s video “Old Bird” sets the scene for ornithological observation. One can view the film through oblong viewing slits in a partition which sets it apart from the main gallery space, as if in a hide. The heaving breaths of the bewhiskered bird ask us to empathise as it closes its eyes and braces itself against the wind. Neeta Madahar’s photographs in the “Sustenance” series illustrate the intervention of humans in the lives of wild creatures; however, a greater presence may be required for the viewer to fully enter...

In the course of my attempts to record my personal relationships both actual and virtual, a large part of my work was made about my family and friends, and male friends in particular. Their recurrence in my work as well as a portrait of my ex-husband gained me the reputation of "the woman who paints men" amongst the students at my college. Up to this point I had given very little thought to the cumulative effect of work based on male subjects; they were simply the persons I was most interested in at the time, visually as well as intellectually. After showing a painting of my friend at a large retail fair to a non art-going public, I was amazed by the responses from female spectators. Most were genuinely surprised to see a man represented as an object of art in his own right, especially positioned on a bed, in what may seem to be a suggestive situation. Many said it was "refreshing". The general reaction of the female viewers was overwhelmingly one of categorizing the subject as a sexual object for female delectation. This led me to question why this was still seen to be unusual in this...