Habitat: Work by Areca Roe

Habitat is the culmination of a yearlong photographic project in which local artist Areca Roe traveled to various zoos throughout the United States and Europe to explore the barriers we create between the natural world and ourselves. It is a complex relationship of protection and exploitation, environments constructed to bring the creatures we cohabitate with closer while simultaneously containing them in simulations of their true place.

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Roe ponders what these manufactured points of contact with the wild reveal about humanity. Does it fulfill some need we have as humans to connect with nature, or is it more a reflection of our desire to have dominion over the very concept of wilderness? A mixture of both the well intentioned and a desire to control and tame can be found in these images. Her photographs capture an ethereal quality; the environments appear more otherworldly than coarsely artificial, leaving the viewer with a sense of the deceptive nature of a gilded cage.

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Areca Roe graduated from the University of Minnesota with a MFA in 2011 and currently lives and works in Minneapolis. Recently Roe completed an artist in residency at the Bell Museum and a solo exhibition at the Notre Dame University Department of Art. She has exhibited throughout the Midwest, as well as internationally in both Hungary and Finland. Roe has also received several grants and fellowships in support of her work including a 2012 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.