Like a dream in the morning mist, a mighty ox emerges from the rain-soaked earth dragging the remnants of an old cart. A prisoner of its yoke, the great beast pulls its heavy load, which carries within it a greedy and angry nation of people—a hungry parasite that saps its energy and consumes its body and soul.

An allegory of mankind heading for disaster, Bydlo is a tragic vision inspired by the fourth movement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Drawing on the composer’s brilliant ability to evoke work and labour in his music, Patrick Bouchard brings the earth to life through animated clay sculptures, creating a concrete and terrifying world, a tactile nightmare in which man is his own slave driver.