A Danish art installation by artist Marco Evaristti aims to spotlight the agony caused by contemporary pig farming practices. The exhibit, which premiered on a recent Friday, controversially includes three piglets that will be deprived of food and water, ultimately leading to their demise through starvation. Evaristti, originally from Chile, seeks to provoke public consciousness about the plight of pigs in Denmark, where roughly 25,000 piglets perish daily due to the breeding conditions they endure.
Central to the “And Now You Care” exhibition in Copenhagen is an improvised cage made from shopping carts housing the piglets. While they were reportedly in good condition at the opening of the exhibit, their continued lack of sustenance is expected to result in their deaths within days. Evaristti expresses on his social media that the exhibit challenges the “bloody reality” of Denmark’s slaughterhouses, urging individuals to lessen their meat consumption and advocate for farming methods that enhance animal welfare.
Animal Protection Denmark, the country’s oldest and largest animal welfare organization, acknowledges the artist’s intent to raise awareness but condemns his controversial approach. Spokesperson Birgitte Damm voiced the organization’s concern, emphasizing that while they understand Evaristti’s outrage, allowing the piglets to starve is both unlawful and constitutes animal abuse. She remarked that even though such occurrences happen on a large scale in the industry, they cannot be justified on any level.
Damm also praised the artist’s efforts in raising broader existential questions about humanity’s interaction with other living beings and the consumption-driven demands for mass-produced inexpensive meat. She elaborated on the breeding practices, where sows in Denmark’s pig industry are bred to deliver approximately 20 piglets though they possess only 14 teats. This mismatch fosters competition for nourishment among the piglets, resulting in high mortality from starvation or suboptimal living conditions, with about 25,000 piglets dying daily.
Evaristti is no stranger to provocation through his art. One notable previous project featured goldfish placed in blenders, challenging audiences to push a button that would blend the fish. In another striking endeavor from 2006, he used his own liposuction-removed body fat to make and subsequently eat meatballs. This “Polpette Al Grasso Di Marco” project was intended as a critique of excessive consumption and society’s reliance on cosmetic surgery like liposuction, while simultaneously questioning the taboo surrounding cannibalism.
