Betta fish are considered disposable items that can be checked out, returned dead, and discarded much like cheap plastic toys. Magnifying bettas to human-size and portraying their environment from a fish-eye perspective provokes the question: what if that dying fish were me?

The betta fish signify the trapped and suffering animals of the world. Our own living and working environments are not much better with apartments stacked sky-high and claustrophobic cubicles providing barely enough room to move. By putting animal cruelty in human terms, people more readily empathize with the subject. The betta is the overlooked, forgotten animal, merely appreciated for superficial aesthetic qualities; it represents all of our shallowness and pain.

Animal symbols transcend temporal and geographic boundaries, providing historical insight and multicultural narratives. The use of the postmodern animal addresses emotional and ethical issues while helping viewers reevaluate their own identities through that of the redefined animal subject.