The Animal Gaze: Contemporary Art & Animal/Human Studies was a practice-led research project funded by London Metropolitan University. The symposium and exhibition were informed by attendance at meetings of the British Animal Studies Network and subscriptions to the H-Animal network, the British Sociological Association's Animal/Human Studies Group and Giovanni Aloi's Antennae, the onlline Journal of Visual Culture and Nature.

The Animal Gaze was devised and developed by Rosemarie McGoldrick, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design, London Metropolitan University (Whitechapel, London, U.K.), with support from Lewis Jones and Chris Smith of London Met's RCF sub-committee. Rosemarie McGoldrick has taught at Sir John Cass since 1993. She obtained her BA in Sculpture at Chelsea School of Art in 1980, teaching sculpture at Ipswich College of Art before doing her Masters at Goldsmiths in 1990. She has undertaken several public sculpture commissions, including at the Homerton Hospital in Hackney and on the Chiltern Sculpture Trust's Trail at Christmas Common.