Photofile 79 - Summer 2007
By Ondine Sherman

As long as we maintain the mental disconnection between the bacon and eggs on our breakfast table and the pigs and chickens that supplied the meal, contemporary humans can live in “blissful” ignorance.

The power of a single image has incited public and political action throughout history. Think of the planes hitting the twin towers on 11 September 2001 or the majestic photograph of Tassie's Franklin River that stirred the souls of Australians in the 1980s. These are extreme images of horror and beauty that led to change.

Animals, who are in the greatest need of representation, are being betrayed by a distinct lack of such images. 'Pictures of animals?' you ask. 'I see them everywhere!' In reality, there are just two categories of animal pictures: the wild and the cute.

Photographers capture stunning images of wildlife that inspire us with the beauty and wonder of nature. But these images are disconnected from our highly urbanised lives. They position us as passive spectators looking into a romanticised version of the natural world devoid of the reality that we are destroying this habitat and endangering much of the wildlife through land clearing and poaching.

We are also seduced by the 'cuteness' of puppies and kittens and images of happy farm animals frolicking on emerald green grass. Marketing campaigns for farming industries rely on this approach and perpetuate the myth that animals are still being raised on the farm of Mr and Mrs Old McDonald where piglets sport muddy noses, cows' udders are lovingly milked into a pail by farmers' children and chickens run to their feed station merrily chirping.

The hard and sad reality is that humans are causing animals to suffer on a mass and unprecedented scale. Every year four billion mammals (pigs, cows, sheep and so on) and 55 billion poultry are 'produced' for food globally. That is ten times the world's human population. Most of these animals are raised in captivity. They never see the light of day, feel the earth under their feet, socialise with their own kind, or are allowed the 'privilege' of caring for their young. They are repeatedly inseminated, mutilated without pain relief and transported over vast distances to meet a miserable demise.

Images of these animals are nowhere to be seen. Why? Well, I believe that in choosing not to ask where our food comes from we collude with the tacit censorship that ensures the public and the media are denied access to factory farms.

As long as we maintain the mental disconnection between the bacon and eggs on our breakfast table and the pigs and chickens that supplied the meal, contemporary humans can live in 'blissful' ignorance. It requires great courage to reflect on our values and behaviours, and choose to change. We don't want to know that the pork we are eating comes from a pig that was born on a concrete floor, breastfed in a cage through steel bars, removed prematurely from its mother, had its teeth and tail cut without pain relief and never saw the light of day except, perhaps, on the way to the abattoir. We don't want to know that pigs are highly intelligent (arguably more so than dogs), that when free to do so a pregnant sow will travel up to ten kilometres to find the right place to give birth and spend another ten hours building a comfortable nest for her young (yes, a pig nest!), or that mother pigs sing to their piglets.

It is our preference for 'blissful' ignorance that maintains consumer complicity in the ongoing denial of where our food really comes from. Meanwhile media agencies for the most part refuse to show images of factory farming as they need to build ratings, and keep advertisers happy. Can we blame the farming industries who, in the name of profit, keep their gates firmly shut to the curious? Should we be surprised that they do not allow photographs and demand that 'radical' animal activists who do take photographs are promptly arrested for trespass?

It's up to us to end this hypocrisy. We can no longer ignore the fact that animals are suffering on a mass scale. We can no longer ethically convince ourselves that we have the right to eat and use animals at any cost, ignoring their needs and their suffering, and denying their intrinsic worth.

LET'S LIFT THE VEIL OF SECRECY.

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