The Animal Gaze Returned, jointly organised by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, invites visitors to examine how humans and animals interact with each other, and question how animals are traditionally represented in art.

Artists exhibiting include Suky Best, Olivier Richon, Andrea Roe, Bob and Roberta Smith, Rosemarie McGoldrick, Darren Harvey-Regan, Steve Baker, Lucy Powell, Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson, Ian Brown, Aurelia Mihai, Greta Alfaro, Kathy High, Cartwright & Jordan and Edwina Ashton.

Co-curator Chloë Brown, senior lecturer in fine art at Sheffield Hallam, says, 'This exhibition explores the way humans look at animals, how animals return that look, and how this shapes human interactions with animals. Ultimately it's about how people connect, and often don’t connect, with other beings.

'It also questions the conventions of anthropomorphism in fine art, through a wide variety of media – from painting, video and photography, to sculpture, taxidermy and performance.'

The Animal Gaze Returned is curated by Chloë Brown from Sheffield Hallam University, Dr Robert McKay from the University of Sheffield and Rosie McGoldrick from London Metropolitan University. It is funded by University of Sheffield Arts Enterprise.

From 2–30 August, a related exhibition, An Animal Space, takes place in the Jessop West Building foyer at the University of Sheffield. It showcases new works that combine sculpture, drawing and text, and explores the connections between the animals who undertook early space flights, and the representation of such animals in postwar literary fiction.

An Animal Space is open to the public on weekdays, from 9am to 6pm.

An Animal Space displays the early results of an ongoing collaboration between Chloë Brown and Robert McKay, which brings the methods of contemporary art practice and literary criticism into conversation to reflect on human fascination by and use of other animals.