Cool Collector # Street Art Files

This Furry work is made by the female street-art collective NEOZOON, based in Paris and Berlin. And forces us to confront the ways in which we relate to animals. The group’s initial project was to take discarded fur coats and cut them into animal shapes, which it pasted to city surfaces. The artwork was often site-specific. In Berlin, for example, the coats were recycled to look like bears, because of the city’s official mascot and the two bears who live in a small enclosure for public viewing in the middle of the city. The fur coat animals force the realization that the pelts were once the skins of living animals, and thus provoke consideration of the public’s celebration and simultaneous exploitation of the captive creatures. In Paris, the collective created a flock of fur-coat lambs that innocently meandered its way across city walls toward Parc de la Villette, which was the site of some of the largest slaughterhouses in 19th-century Europe.
The latest project by NEOZOON is the non-toed fur-coatie: Pellicusia Urbana. Continuing the collective’s exploration of public attitudes toward captive animals, the non-toed fur-coaties are upcycled fur coats stuffed with moving machinery that creates an effect eerily similar to that of a living, breathing animal. Zoos in the German cities of Münster and Magdeberg have populated a few of their cages with the fur-coaties, complete with signs and descriptions. The fake creatures have also been spotted in public parks and playgrounds throughout Berlin.

For more info about NEOZOON, visit their site!

Via Planet –mag.com