What does freedom look like to a guide dog? If the hierarchy ranking people above dogs — and people without obvious disabilities above people with — vanished?

An art installation by Emilie Gossiaux attempts to answer these questions. I described her work, titled Other-Worlding, in a post a few months ago — without having seen it. Then, I was among a fortunate few able to participate in a “touch tour” on the exhibit’s closing day. Along with the tour, we got to eavesdrop on a conversation between Emilie and curator Sarah Cho.

The center of the exhibit is a 15-foot-tall white cane of the type many people with visual impairments or blindness use to navigate. Its central role in the sculpture emphasizes  the importance of a cane to Emilie’s independence.

Around this cane, turned into a whimsical maypole, dance three human-sized dog sculptures — each a vision of a liberated London, Emilie’s recently retired guide dog. One London is attentive and alert: ready to guide. One London is relaxed and blissful: London on break. The third London is playful and uninhibited. Each London, rather than being attached by the neck to a leash, instead loosely holds the handle of a brightly colored leash — the streamers on the maypole.

For Emilie, both the cane and the guide dog represent independence, a liberation of sorts from limitations imposed by her impaired vision. But the art piece goes beyond that to imagine London liberated as well, from the constraints of a society that sees dogs, and all non-humans, as “less than” humans: less valuable, less capable, less worthy.

… All while leveraging dogs’ and other non-humans’ extraordinary capabilities to do things that humans cannot.

During the tour, each participant touched various pieces of the installation, describing what we saw and felt — textures and colors, the dog’s body position and expressions. Even Guide dog Hildy got in on the action, gently sniffing a papier-mâché flower. Afterward, in her conversation with Sarah, Emilie described the importance of her use of color and texture in creating each element of the installation: Flowers and leaves, tree trunks, the dogs’ bodies with palpable texture, and a smooth material to create the dogs’ noses, paw pads, and nails. Spring colors, a bright green for leaves, peachy orange, opalescent purple, and deep red for flowers, gold, red, and purple leashes, along with a bright sun and moon, add joy and energy.

She also described her research into societies that move beyond conventional hierarchies and boundaries. The title, Other-Worlding, is from the work of feminist scholar Donna Haraway; Emilie’s ideas on the dog-human partnership draw on Beasts of Burden, by Sunaura Taylor, and Dogsbody, by Dianne Wynne Jones. Though I am not familiar with either work, I enjoyed the perspective of guide dogs as full partners to their humans and the image of a world where dogs enjoy liberation and the enlightened respect of humans who value them as they deserve.