“Being human has never felt so beastly”
So You Think You’re Human
Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Emotional and intellectual reactions to the same images can be very different and it is the difference between these reactions I seek to explore. In the past, my work has had an emphasis towards trying to highlight the ethical contradictions inherent in the production and consumption of meat in our Western culture and specifically the treatment of those animals raised for food. Meat is now supplied ready cut and vacuum packed whilst the processes of raising, slaughter and butchery are removed from public awareness and into the concentration camps of factory farming.
More recently, I shifted away from purely visceral representations of meat and images of the slaughterhouse and towards a wider focus. Images of the slaughterhouse and the battlefield are common place in our culture but the real truth of these horrors remain hidden in favour of a more acceptable symbolic approach.
In the past some of my work has become quite abstracted and although I would want to retain some ambiguity, I want to recontextualise the work into the broader area of what it means to be human and how we relate to other species. I aim to express an oblique but directly metaphorical comparison with the human from and that of other animals. In this way, I want to challenge existing perceptions and preconceptions of our place in the world.
In my research, I have become increasingly interested influenced by the writing of John Gray and Peter Singer amongst others who question our notions of ‘superiority’ over other species and deal with issues concerning the rights of non-human animals. I feel that animals and human rights are not irreconcilable an are a part of the same ‘continuum’ of rights.
Many artists today such as Yvette Watt and Britta Jaschinski are dealing with this combination of art and activism and striving to produce work, which although may not be overtly didactic has a strong political element with which I strongly identify.
2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin who forever changed our relationship to other species and as research develops the gap between ‘them and us’ is growing ever smaller. These remain vital contemporary issues.