Intuitive Interspecies Communication With A Grub Reveals The Applied Arts Can No Longer Ignore Nonhuman-Animal Artisans

PURPOSE Currently, the organizational culture of Applied Arts’ spaces is bound by interlinked, oppressive/privileged systems using terms such as the ableist ‘handmade’. This article details using Intuitive Interspecies Communication, (IIC), to uncloak the proficient and multitudinous making skills of nonhuman-animals, from their own viewpoint. This simultaneously acknowledges individual nonhuman-animal artisanship and dismantles oppressive arts language. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH IIC is one of my innate skills. Using unstructured IIC interviews, nonhuman-animal artisans explain their making materials and modalities. Acting as transcriber and reflective/reflexive practitioner, I then create art jewellery to disseminate concepts from the interview data. FINDINGS Making as directed from the perspective of nonhuman-animal artisans reveals multiple oppressive/privileged biases ingrained in the Applied Arts, impacting how we attribute objects nonhuman-animals make and those created by humans with hands-free technology. The resulting non-bodycentric language provides an environment where all making is valid. ORIGINALITY/VALUE Centralising nonhuman-animal voices and reframing their ‘instinctually’-made objects as decisionmade recognises “universal multispecies creativity” (Gigliotti, 2022). This engenders compassion for fellow makers of all species oppressed by the Applied Arts’ kyriarchal systems.