Canine Cosmonaut

Kat Alamouti

Grey stuffed dog with white muzzle. Dog is wearing a space suit with a blue bone-shaped nametag that reads "Laika". Dog has a patch on her right that is a red flag with a yellow space ship. On her right is a patch with a PSI meter.

Laika was the first animal to ever be sent into orbit. She was sent up to space by the Soviet Union in the Sputnik 2 on November 3rd 1957. Laika was found on the streets of Moscow as a stray. Prior to her launch, then physician to the USSR Space Program, Vladimir Yazdovsky, brought Laika home for 10 days to spend time with his family. He is quoted in saying that “Laika was quiet and charming… I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live.” She was never meant to survive her mission. The technology to bring her home didn’t exist. Laika’s vessel reached critical temperatures soon into her orbit. She died of hyperthermia shortly after. Humans chose Laika as a tool to discover the effects of space travel because she wasn’t human and because we saw dogs as lesser than. Laika was not the last animal to be sent into space. We’ve launched non-human beings as recent as 2021.



Plush heron with an embroidered anatomical heart on its chest. It sits on a plinth with its wings crossed in front of it.



Kat Alamouti

I'm seeking opportunities
Contact Me

What is man to a dog? What is a dog to a bird? What is a bird to a worm? What is a worm to the inevitable heat death of the universe?

Kat Alamouti is a Romanian-Iranian-Canadian artist living and working on the unceded territory of the Katzie First Nation. Kat uses her practice to explore interspecies relationships between the human and the more-than-human or, as Donna Haraway writes, the tentacular. She works primarily in soft sculpture, giving the viewer a chance to reflect on the fragile and precious nature of these creatures, the stories that brought them to view, and how we may treat these beings in the future.

Profile image of Kat Alamouti

Release Granted