Description
Photomontage screenprint, acrylic on Fabriano Rosaspina printmaking paper 285 gsm, 50 x 70 cm.
The largest CAFO [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation] pig farm in the world is in Ezhou China. It is 26 stories high and can produce 1.2 million pigs for market each year. In Australia we do not build tower blocks, but our CAFO’s turn out over 5.5 million pigs for slaughter each year. The amount of air, water and soil pollution these industries produce is astonishing, the level of animal husbandry is so reduced that these operations are off limits to the public. The lack of visual records is a common theme in industrial farming operations.
British artist Banksy’s 2003 exhibition “Turf Wars” explored these themes, placing live farm animals painted with various motifs on display. “Fuck Pigs” was spray painted in red letters across the belly of a young pig on exhibit. The level of callousness that society shows towards these social, gentle animals is unconscionable. To me, Banksy’s work highlighted this disregard in ways that other forms of protest have been unable to – whether it was his intention or not.
I have taken the silhouette of Banksy’s pig and placed it in various landscapes, here she is immersed in an 1888 etching of the Blue Mountains, and given voice with spotlight and microphone.
EDITION OF 7
