In the natural world, no species survives solely for the benefit of other species. Animals have the right to exist freely as individuals, but because they cannot communicate in human languages, they are misunderstood and exploited as human resources. Many humans believe that their preferred species deserve or are entitled to be cared for. If we declare that we should not inflict pain on dogs, but on pigs, cows and chickens, we are engaging in species discrimination.
According to James Serpell, people see animals in four groups: those who are loved and useful, those who are loved and useless, those who are unloved and useful, and those who are unloved and useless.
Prejudice toward certain animal groups is more than a personal feeling. It is also an emotion anchored in one's social environment and linked culture, demonstrating how cultural viewpoints impact people's social behavior. Using these four groups as criteria for classifying animals, from my point of view, crickets are found in unloved and useless existence.
Pet Cricket is about exploring whether humans and insects can change their previous connection to each other through a different role relationship by keeping crickets as pets. There is a considerable difference in the way people perceive animals that are considered pets compared to other animals. Over the process of the project, I designed a series of houses and toys for the cricket which focused on his needs and feelings, and interacted with him in a non contact way. I tried to change my personal feeling about the cricket by changing the environment in which he lives and, through understanding his daily life, maybe this could be a new way of relating to the non-human world.
