Marcus, said:”Hello, I am Marcus, 8 years old, living in Austria. I painted this picture with markers, watercolor and white acrylic paint as a highlighter. I want to show the lonely, sad boy looking into the pond, and in reflection, he sees the beautiful world
shared by humans and animals. If we do not value animals’ life, then we will lose the beautiful world and only get to miss it”.

Bernard, said: “This is a stop-motion video to show connections between human and animal on a mental level and their impact (inspired by therapy dogs).”

Jessamie, said: “When I was a little girl I knew in my heart what it was like to be all the animals that have ever lived, even those that are extinct or mythical. I know how they think and feel and smell. I plan to be a writer and vet in the future. When I was younger I wrote the first draft of this story – it’s sort of about me.” – Jessamie, age 9.

Haum, said: “In order to express the coexistence of humans and animals, I drew that a human girl plays the violin, animals are appreciating the her performance and sing along with everyone, so that they look friendly. And I painted the background with various colors using water color, and for the animals with color pencils to look cute like cartoon characters. I wanted to show the beautiful harmony between nature and human beings.”

Aisling, said: “My art piece is called “Boy on leaping lion”. This is a digital art that I’ve created with my art pad, using Krita. My inspiration is about the habitats of lions shrinking due to humans needing the space to grow crops. I wanted to express that people and animals can co-exist together. The photo shows a boy sitting on the lion’s back and they are leaping into the bright sun together, into tomorrow, into the future.”

Andrei, said: “This painting is 120x150cm. I painted this on my bedroom’s drywall with acrylic. The mural depicts a young boy riding a horse bareback. The horse is rearing up dramatically in a flat and empty field full of flowers. I love this painting because it transports my mind elsewhere. Along the edges of the painting, I drew cracks and bricks to give the impression that you are looking through a hole in my wall. This painting allows me to escape boredom and monotony in my room by depicting this beautiful moment between humans and animals just beyond my room’s walls. To me, this painting is a constant reminder of the beautiful relationship between animals and humans and the joy we bring each other.”

Rachel, said”I wanted to create a piece where I could capture the harsh realities of animal cruelty in the medical and cosmetic industry through art. In my piece, I have used fire to symbolise the destructive and harmful nature of the medical and cosmetic industry to show the detrimental effect it has on our animals. I have specifically chosen a dog to present this as I want the viewers to imagine their very own pets in this situation like the thousands of animals that are every day. In my piece, I have used a fireman to symbolise organisations such as the Humanimal Trust who fight this very issue, to symbolise the kindness of humans, to symbolise the beautiful connection we share with our animals.”

Eden, said: “The title of my piece is Parasitism. I wanted to portray the lack of symbiosis within the medicinal fields, stealing health and knowledge from the wonderful animals around us and exploiting it for our benefit. I built the base of my painting out of cardboard- all recycled- and built up in two segments. The top is the tiger’s domain, beautiful and elegant, surrounded in leaves, its biology and environment our healthcare’s basis. Below it lies a woman, dosing in a bed of pills. I want this piece to show how our society lives in excess taking too much and not seeing the error of our ways, hence the closed eyes. The pills themselves are made from packaging peanuts, and painted in the most iconic pill imagery, so they are immediately recognisable. I hope this artwork conveys the inequality I feel in the relationship of humans and animals, and my desire for change.”

Jasmine, said: “I wanted to show connections between humans and animals in my piece through the use of colour, which I achieved through using coloured soft pastels. The lightest colour yellow is meant to show highlights, red showing mid tones, and blue showing shadows. I decided to use colour to contrast against the dark background, which I used charcoal, as well as white and grey chalk for. This colour brought into our lives, as well as animals lives if treated kindly, is a magical and fulfilling experience of unconditional love and connection.”

Apollo, said: “For this piece, I solely used tonal pencils to create a drawing of this conglomerate image of a child and sea life, and this sense of fusion accentuating the relationship between man and animal through this hybridisation in the artwork.”

Daniel, said: “The siphonophore is a symbol of connectivity, and I wanted to paint it as if it was the northern lights to show the connections with humans and aquatic life. A figure is shown restoring a coral reef, the connection of humans and animals in an optimistic lens.”