Hopefully, I will Live Through This with a Little Bit of Dignity

Executed in 2005, Hopefully I Will Live Through This with a Little Bit of Dignity by Canadian artist Jon Pylypchuk sprawls across the gallery floor as a chaotic rodent war. Within the violent mise-en-scène, rat-soldiers meet their demise not in a moment of battle glory, but an outbreak of poisoning. Crafted with farcical malevolence, Pylypchuk implies an 'us vs. them' narrative featuring viewer as villain: his microcosm spoilt by a towering on-looking exterminator.

Throughout Jon Pylypchuk's work is an irrepressible optimism, an underdog's against-all-odds drive for meaningful existence in a barbaric world. There is a pang of sympathy as the miniature creatures limp on gun-crutches and writhe in agony. Attributed with all the unsavoury traits of human character, his varmint cohort of furry victims become endearing effigies of the dark side of social psychology. Transposing the unthinkable into sub-human form, Pylypchuk's characters in Hopefully I Will Live Through This with a Little Bit of Dignity become neutral targets for emotional displacement; in his gawpy animated universe there is no right or wrong, only a Darwinian hierarchy and Peter Principle law of nature. Pylypchuk plays out horror and grief with child-like naivet and chilling matter-of-fact-ness; and with Hopefully I Will Live Through This with a Little Bit of Dignity, the mise-en-scène becomes a playful yet violent folktale.