Description
Photomontage screenprint, acrylic on Fabriano Rosaspina printmaking paper 285gsm, 50 x 70cm
Rabbits are considered Australia’s worst agricultural pest species, and they have had everything thrown at them from live explosives to biological warfare. In return, the rabbit population provided ‘underground mutton’ to the entire population of Australia through the Great Depression of the 1930s, and two World Wars. They supported rural and remote communities with their reliable supply of meat, fur and felt. In 1929, the rabbit industry was the largest employer of labor in Australia. This was a wild harvest – the rabbits belonged to the commons. People without land title made better money rabbiting than they did as farmhands, and consequently it was difficult to find farm labor at times. The rabbits were eating out the grass fields that belonged to land holders and their herds.
The text in the background of the print tells the longer story, with the rabbit holding an iconic army slouch hat – Australia made 5.5 million of these hats for the soldiers in World War II, at 10 rabbits per hat. Myxomatosis brought an abrupt end to the cheap supply of meat and felt – ushering in the immensely profitable and environmentally damaging CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) chicken farms as a food replacement, and great expansion for the sheep industry.
Edition of 10
