Lighting the debate
Artist Julia Lohmann has used spare animal parts to make furniture in an attempt, she says, to bring people face-to-face with the way animals are used to produce everyday products.
She says: "The point was just to show that so much of our classification of animals depends on context: a rabbit is a family pet, vermin or a delicacy. Similarly, people think it's terrible if animals are used in art - by the likes of Damien Hirst, for example. But they accept it if animals are killed to produce consumer goods."
The contradictions in the way we treat animals are rife and pointing it out in such a stark way is, I think, a worthwhile aim. The only problem is that most people already know it. But humans have an incredible capacity to be appalled, and then, a few seconds later, to forget it and carry on as before.
That’s why I tip my hat to all those former meat-eaters out there who managed to stay focused enough on the cruelty caused to animals to change their diets and become vegetarians. Vegans deserve even a bigger doffing of the hat for going the whole hog. I was raised veggie and so I didn’t have to make that choice – and I sometimes wonder if I would have? Who knows.
Anyway, artist Lohmann is doing some good work for vegetarianism with this show, despite the fact it uses dead animal parts and she herself is not a vegetarian. She says she considers it important, in a society in which packaging and even language is used to disguise the origins of animal-based products, that consumers take some responsibility for their role in an animal's death.
"For some, that would make it hard to wear the leather, or eat the meat," she says. "It's hard in a market designed to make us less and less aware of the connection; chicken doesn't look like chicken any more but comes in dinosaur-shaped lumps.
"Whether or not to go vegetarian is a personal choice - but it's a choice everyone should make actively. Our relationship with animals is not a simple yes or no debate. Acknowledging the origins of a product is a first step towards making more ethical choices about what we consume."
She says: "The point was just to show that so much of our classification of animals depends on context: a rabbit is a family pet, vermin or a delicacy. Similarly, people think it's terrible if animals are used in art - by the likes of Damien Hirst, for example. But they accept it if animals are killed to produce consumer goods."
The contradictions in the way we treat animals are rife and pointing it out in such a stark way is, I think, a worthwhile aim. The only problem is that most people already know it. But humans have an incredible capacity to be appalled, and then, a few seconds later, to forget it and carry on as before.
That’s why I tip my hat to all those former meat-eaters out there who managed to stay focused enough on the cruelty caused to animals to change their diets and become vegetarians. Vegans deserve even a bigger doffing of the hat for going the whole hog. I was raised veggie and so I didn’t have to make that choice – and I sometimes wonder if I would have? Who knows.
Anyway, artist Lohmann is doing some good work for vegetarianism with this show, despite the fact it uses dead animal parts and she herself is not a vegetarian. She says she considers it important, in a society in which packaging and even language is used to disguise the origins of animal-based products, that consumers take some responsibility for their role in an animal's death.
"For some, that would make it hard to wear the leather, or eat the meat," she says. "It's hard in a market designed to make us less and less aware of the connection; chicken doesn't look like chicken any more but comes in dinosaur-shaped lumps.
"Whether or not to go vegetarian is a personal choice - but it's a choice everyone should make actively. Our relationship with animals is not a simple yes or no debate. Acknowledging the origins of a product is a first step towards making more ethical choices about what we consume."
posted by Adharanand Finn at 8:59 AM
1 Comments:
Had not heard of this... till now. Thank you for the enlightment and news of this artist's ideas and work.
Post a Comment
<< Home