Daniel Steegmann Mangrané La Pensée Ferale, 2020

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s photograph La Pensée Férale was taken in one of the world’s largest urban forests, located in the Tijuca National Park. The Mata Atlántica Rainforest in Brazil is one of the most biodiverse yet endangered areas on earth. The work depicts a section of forest with a dog eye. Rather than using collage or digital manipulation, Steegmann Mangrane had affixed the image of the dog eye to the tree trunk before taking the photograph.

Dogs entered the artist's practice with his first narrative feature film, Fog Dog, 2020, which takes as point of departure the curious interaction of human and non-human inhabitants of the Institute of Fine Arts of Dhaka, documenting the daily life of the school and and the numerous stray dogs that live there and seem to lead a parallel existence. In 2021, the artist's contribution to the 11th Liverpool Biennial, also entitled La Pensée Férale featured a replica of a Pau Rei, a native tree of the Brazilian Mata Atlántica, imbedded with the eye of an Indian pariah dog from Bangladesh. This motif - a dog's eye gazing out from a tropical tree trunk - has continued to recur in Steegmann Mangrane's practice.