For this project, I made seven paper mache animal heads, which I stuck in seven separate pieces of raw meat. I then safety pinned a fact about the meat packing industry on each 'animal' and left it sitting in some public place where it was likely to be found by a person, before wild animals destroyed it.
This project is meant to be an act of poetic terrorism. Poetic Terrorism consists of acts performed with the sole purpose of changing the life of at least one audience member. I would never tell anyone that they should not eat meat, because I would never want anyone to tell me that I should eat meat. But, I wondered, if someone could see meat the way that I see it, would it cause them to change their life, or at least their diet? I'll never know, but I hope it did. My purpose in this project was first to put the meat into the context of coming from a living being. I hoped to achieve this with the paper mache animal heads that were sticking out of the meat. Then, I wanted to inform the people who found my objects about the meat industry. Although each object only had one small, shocking fact about the meat industry, I hoped that at least one person would be inspired to further investigate the truth about meat. While this is unlikely, it is not impossible.
First, I went to the grocery store and spent a long time in the meat isle. It was strange being there, because, although I had been in this grocery store hundreds of times, I had never been in the meat isle before. I decided that I wanted to get meat that most resembled the animal it came from. This was easy for the chicken, because I could buy a whole chicken without a problem. I decided to get a couple packages of pigs feet, rather than pork, to represent the pigs. For the cows, I considered buying cow hearts, but in the end just got some ground beef.
When I got home, I stuck the meat in my closet to keep it away from my cat and to let it thaw for a while. I felt like I had murdered someone and had hid the body in the closet. In the mean time, I made several paper mache animal heads (2 chickens, 2 pigs, and 3 cows) which I painted to look very friendly and cartoon-like. I named the animal heads and then I stuck them in their individual pieces of raw meat that made up their bodies.
Although I have not eaten meat in 6 years, I have not been very radical about vegetarianism since I was 15. So, I spent several hours researching the meat packing industry on the internet and rediscovered all the reasons I had become a vegetarian in the first place. I found three important facts about cattle farming (one for each cow I had made), two important facts about factory farming of chickens (one for each chicken I had made), and two important facts about swine farming (one for each pig I had made). These facts are listed below, along with the web pages where I found them. Although all the web sites I used have biased information that does not give the meat industry's side of the story, I felt that they also had reliable information that was not embellished or made up.
Once I had attatched all of the slips of paper with the individual facts about the meat industry to each animal, I waited till 5:30AM and then set out to find new homes for these guys, where they could make their minor dent in the world.
Pig #1: Wilber
Wilber was placed on a picnic table outside of Fresh Plus (a
grocery store). He may have likely been found by one of the homeless people
that hangs around there.
"The farmed-animal industry treats animals like inanimate objects,
mutilating their bodies, regularly dosing them with hormones and drugs,
and breeding them to grow so quickly that their limbs and organs can't
keep up. A few years ago, when prices fell, pig farmers sponsored pig
hunts, abandoned pigs at animal shelters, and hung pig carcasses from
highway overpasses." http://www.taxmeat.com/topten.html
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| Wilber |
Wilber on the picnic bench |
Pig #2: Porky
I put Porky in front of the Wendy's drive thru on 35 and 41st.
"Pigs, 'the barnyard's smartest animals,' have been taught by Pennsylavania
State University researchers to play video games with the skill of primates,
shown persistence when set to a task, been able to understand complex
relationsjips between actions and objects, and sensibly regulated their
own climate; they are smarter than dogs or cats. [Here are some of the
ways] farmers treat them on factory farms and in slaughter houses: breaking
their noses with baseball bats, sticking metal hooks into their anuses,
dropping them, still conscious, into the scalding hot hair-removal tub,
etc." http://www.taxmeat.com/topten.html
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| Porky |
Porky at Wendy's |
Chicken #1: Henrietta
Henrietta was placed in the parking lot of HEB. I'm hoping
she was found by an unsuspecting shopping cart collector.
Synthetic estrogen given to US raised chickens causes American men to
have lowered sperm count and increased impotency. These same hormones
cause American girls to go through puberty as young as 8 or 9 (or even
younger!) and can even cause men to grow breasts. http://www.peta.org/feat/sperm/
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| Henrietta |
Henrietta at HEB |
Chicken #2: Chickypoo
I put chickypoo at the bus stop on Speedway and 43rd. Hopefully
someone catching the early morning bus ran into her.
Chickens raised in factory-style chicken farms are kept so crammed together
that they are forced to sit and wade through their own feces and do not
even have enough room to groom themselves. These chickens often result
to stress induced cannibalism
http://www.macca-net.org/PerterRCheeke.shtml
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| Chickypoo |
Chickypoo at the bus stop |
Cow #1: Elsie
Elsie was placed outside the Jack in the Box on 41st Street.
Since it was very early Friday morning, there may have still been someone
coming in for a hamburger after partying Thursday night, who may have
decided to get a milk shake instead.
Often, cattle will begin the meat packing process while they're still
alive. Their legs will be blowtorched off and they are sometimes even
skinned, while still kicking an screameing. This is illegal, but laws
requiring humane treatment of cattle are rarely upheld.
http://www.macca-net.org/inhumane.shtml
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| Elsie |
Elsie at Jack in the Box |
Cow #2: Fred
I left Fred at the Taco Bell on Guadalupe. I'm not even sure
if the beef they use at Taco Bell really is from cows, but if no customer
found him, maybe they used him in the morning tacos.
"Most beef cattle spend the last few months of their lives at feedlots,
crowded by the thousand into dusty, manure laden holding pens. The air
is thick with harmful bacteria and particulate matter, and the animals
are at a constant risk for respiratory disease."
http://www.factoryfarming.com/beef.htm
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| Fred |
Fred at Taco Bell |
Cow #3: Ginger
Finally, Ginger was the last meat to be dropped off. I left
her at the Jack in the Box on Guadalupe. There was a delivery man delivering
some food and I left her near his truck.
"raising animals for food requires more water than all other uses
combined, causes more water pollution than any other source, and is responsible
for 85% of U.S. soil erosion thus far."
http://www.taxmeat.com/enviro.html
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| Ginger |
Ginger at Jack in the Box |