We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.
The installation invites you to enter into a cage of 4 by 4 meters. It represents the cage of lab animals. Short cartoons and a movie introducing the basic scientific work are projected on various screens. A tower of Petri dishes represents the work of the toxicologists who are looking for alternative methods that will enable science to eventually do away with animal testing. The Petri dishes break through the top of the cage: that is the most realistic escape for animals. Microscope images of cells convey the beauty and complexity of living systems and the central role that cells play in developing alternative methods.
Animal studies do not always predict human outcomes: Both obvious and subtle differences between humans and animals, in terms of our physiology, anatomy, and metabolism, often make it difficult to apply data derived from animal studies to human conditions. New approaches using human cells in vitro and computer modelling can help us better understand how molecules interact with human biology:
Transitioning to new non-animal approaches is a win-win, avoiding animal testing while doing better science. Researchers spent decades infecting non-human primates with polio, and conducting other animal experiments, but failed to produce a vaccine. The breakthrough that led directly to the vaccine and a Nobel Prize, occurred when researchers grew the virus in human cell cultures in vitro.
The cage is a poignant reminder of the life lab animals have to bear. But it also points to aspects of sequestration that characterize contemporary society. Sequestration, in this sense, signifies a withdrawal into a false reality that is simply given. Animation has added a new dimension to the field of art and design. It reveals the invisible and makes the impossible possible. It is being recognised too as a powerful way of visualising, understanding and communicating scientific concepts and results. It is a perfect tool to give animals a personality, to convey the reality of animal use in science, and to introduce our work at the JRC in the "Three 3Rs" - to Replace, Reduce and Refine animal testing.
Installation by Rabea Graepel and Jutta Triebe.
22 May 2026 | 15 Jul 2026
