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Subscribe to RSSA Kansas artist says she’ll change her plan to publicly slaughter chickens as part of an art installation after city officials told her the plan would violate local ordinances and could result in a $1,000 fine.
Lawrence city officials said that Amber Hansen’s project, “The Story of Chickens: A Revolution,” would amount to animal cruelty, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Hansen had planned to display chicken coops across the eastern Kansas city with volunteers helping to care for the birds. The exhibit was to end with the birds being killed and served as a meal, the AP reported. Hansen wanted to draw attention to the process of slaughtering animals.
“If people choose to eat meat, it is an important process to witness and be mindful of,” Hansen told the Lawrence Journal-World. “It is a process that takes place on a mass scale every day, and we aren’t really allowed to see it.”
Assistant City Attorney Chad Sublet told the newspaper that the public slaughter of chickens would be a violation of the city’s animal cruelty code.
“I think one could argue there is a freedom of expression interest here, but I think under our obligations to protect the health, safety and public welfare it is an activity we can regulate,” he told the Lawrence Journal-World.
Hansen told the newspaper on Monday her project will move forward but in a way that complies with city code. Details of what that new installation would include were still being worked out, she said.
An email to Hansen on Tuesday by msnbc.com was not immediately returned.
The original proposal sparked criticism from Lawrence’s Compassion for All Animals Group and United Poultry Concerns, the newspaper reported.
“There has been a lot of feedback,” Hansen told the newspaper. “There has been a lot of meaningful dialogue and discussion and that is good. The project will move forward to accommodate that discussion, but it will abide by the city’s codes.”
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If the chickens are being taken care of, and they're going to be slaughtered and dressed out/cooked/eaten the way chickens usually are by people who raise them for food, I fail to see how the city can call this animal cruelty. It's no different from anyone else killing chickens for food, some of whom probably treat them much worse than this artist before the slaughter and even kill them in unconscionably inhumane ways that I'm sure this artist was going to avoid.
Though I'm an avid meat eater, I still think it's important for people to truly understand where their food comes from, especially if it's an animal product. People need to know what the consequences of their choices and actions are.
Trying to prevent her from doing this is like trying to prevent people from reporting on the working conditions in factories overseas that make our clothes, electronics, etc. If people are going to ban expression, art or even the press from making them aware of what their consumption of various goods and services entail because they don't want anyone making them feel guilty for the fact that they thrive at the expense of others, then we're absolutely doomed as a society, as we're eventually going to have no humanity left.
This refusal to witness the hardships of other living beings is a huge factor in the failure of, say, school shooters to develop a sense of others having feelings.
What an idiot this person is. You never see it cause you live in a box. Almost every meal we eat is slaughtered. I do not enjoy killing or making a game out of it but I sure enjoy it right beside the mash potatoes. And yes I have killed and butchered many animals for my freezer. It is way healthier than the fast food garbage.
How embarrassing to be so clueless.
this broad ain't no artist, she's whacked...what a bad example to innocent kids...throw her away and lock the key if she does this.
I am sure a lot of people would stop eating meat if they had to harvest it themselves or saw the animals they were about to consume. But really we are an "out of sight out of mind" society.
*goes back to eating steak*
Well, considering that we did it for thousands of years and considered meat to be an important part of our diet, I'd have to disagree. Through-out our entire history, each family bred & raised (or stalked), slaughtered, and ate their own meat if they intended to have any that year. I was raised that way and I'm only in my mid-30's. We raised rabbits only as it was a single family farm, but my brother now raises his own goats and chickens along with his rabbits . . . and yes my young children help care for them. The oldest is only 4, but all 3 kids will be actively participating in the entire process over the years. This isn't meant to desensitize them, it is meant to show them the most humane, responsible way to obtain meat. I can't comment on big business practices, but I can tell you that our dinner comes with zero guilt!
We need to go after the grocery stores before we go after the people who eat meat. They buy 2-3 times more meat than they'll realistically sell just to make sure they don't run out and waste profit. The result is a lot of this on display meat is being thrown away. Stores should work like an actual butcher. Take calls of what someone wants before they get there or take orders of the meat they want right there. For all of this meat to be thrown away is horrendous. I eat meat every so often just because after seeing 2-4 hundred pounds of it a week getting thrown away at my old job, sometimes even 500+ a week, I knew it was less moral to not eat it than to eat it. This is a society of waste and a part of what is getting wasted is lives. Our soldiers in needless wars, our animals in needless slaughter. Then we slaughter wildlife to protect livestock that's just getting thrown away!
The way these animals are kept and treated is atrocious, yet rather than fix the problem like a civilized society should, we have a politically motivated bombardment of trying to delegitimize the suffering and importance of animal life. So long as this crap continues, we're just a bunch of sophisticated cavemen at the peak of a barbaric way of life, not the beginnings of a civilized society.
The real question is whether this is "art" or someone making a political statement against how our food source is harvested and only perpetrating the action as "art" to make is palatable or to gain funding to proceed with it.
I have no problem if someone wants to make a statement for or against what they believe. But, let's not call it "art".
Of course it's a political statement. The artist said as much in the article. You really need to get beyond the headline.
Bottom line, its cruel if we can see it happen, food if we can't.
so you are saying that art cannot have a meaning? are you familiar with the purpose of art?
Really?
Then every person doing their job in meat processing and packing plants are being cruel because they see it every day. Or the hunter that does a field dressing.
I hate to admit it, but i am with the Radical Right on this one. Bad taste, maybe. Cruelty, not even close.
Even political statements can be art. Look at political cartoons. But, I do think calling things like this art is just stupid. Art is supposed to be an idealized rendering of something that we can't see around us already. Otherwise, it's just regular, everyday whatever.
What she's doing isn't art any more than someone having chicken coops in their back yard and killing and eating the chickens they house in them is art. It's like those people who drape buildings or even entire towns in fabric and call that art. It's just fabric draped over stuff. To call it art is to insult people with the necessary imagination and skills to produce what is actually art.
That said, she still isn't being any more cruel to these chickens than a farmer or a chicken plant worker is. They're just going after her for trying to make people aware of the consequences of their choices and actions, and the public just doesn't want to have to engage in living with a conscience, so they're shutting her down. What they're doing to her is far worse than what they're trying to stop her from doing.
Come on people God put animals on earth for us to eat. God even commanded that lambs and goats be sacrificed to him. Why don't you PETA people put as much effort into helping the starving and abused children of this world as you do for a chicken. If you don't want to eat meat that is your right. Leave the rest of the people that love to eat meat alone. God would smile on you far more if you were to help a child in need rather than worry about what your neighbor eats!!!!
In Biblical Eden there was no eating of animals. Wouldn't that be a standard to aspire for?
It is your personal opinion that God put animals here for humans to eat. It is your opinion that there is a god in the first place, that he would created animals just to be killed and eaten by humans, and on top of that that he would create them knowing (since he knows everything?) that they would often be tortured throughout life and killed with cruelty. You have no idea what would make God smile if you think there is a God and he would be happy with animals being tortured. It is your right to those opinions, but be clear that they are your personal opinions and not facts.
References, please. What holy book has a god that demands human sacrafice (Satanism?), killing of women and children and slavery of daughters? I suggest you change books.
I love animals.....there delicious. Everything tastes better on the endangered species list. PETA-Peoples Eating Tasty Animals.......did I forget any??????
I only eat vegetarians! ;)
I ate a Brownie once.
For every animal a vegetarian doesn't eat, I'm going to eat two more in addition to the one I already am. If they'd just consume meat like they're actually meant to, there'd be one more animal left alive every time I eat a meal. ;)
Killing animals is not art. No creature should die so you can "express yourself." Grow up, human race.
It is only cruel if you kill chickens in public.
Hmmmm .... so if I cut a chicken's head off in public, it's cruel. If I slowly crush a chicken to death between two bricks in private, it's not cruel. Not buyin' it.
I was being sarcastic, but that is apparently the standard adopted by the meat eating society. Very few people would have the stomach to kill, gut, clean, and quarter their meat with their own hands, or even to watch others do it. One trip to the slaughterhouse and you are a different person.
Ok, so collect the chickens, take them to a farm in an unincorporated area and setup a live Internet Video feed.
It's cheap, gets around the local ordinance, is still live, and can be replayed.
Granted as performance Art goes, you will lose the smell of fresh blood, but even that can by accomplished during the video feed.
The artist formerly known as "Dip@!$%#".
I'm gettin' hungry....
but really, I hear the way they slaughter chickens is aweful.....they throw them in boiling water or something boiling, alive, to kill them and make their feathers come off or make it easier to be plucked......I forget what I read but it sounded ppretty cruel.
Lol ignorance is so sad. You cut off their little heads before you take off their feathers, of course. It's really interesting how people don't know what it's like to kill and eat an animal - for that reason, I do think this is a really interesting performance. If more people did kill their own food - they would merely become accustomed to it, as those of us who have done that were, and those throughout history were. How about the plains indian spearing a bison? It's all relative. But to deny it and hide is kind of silly - and that's actually where real cruelty (like factory farming) originates.
So do what the PETA ambassadors do in South Beach...play streaming videos of animal slaughters in process. She gets her point across and since no animals are being killed in the town, she wouldn't be violating the ordinances.
PETA is filled with idiots too.
Another minority trying to get a fruitless point across.
Man in an omnivore.
Always will be.
Show me the video, and then show me the way to the nearest good fried chicken joint.
Finger lickin' good.
I think she's an idiot....
Well, I guess if they painted with the blood as it was pumping out after chopping the chickens head off, it would be closer to an artistic expression. I helped my Grandma kill and pluck chickens when I was a kid. She'd put them in near boiling water after they bled out so they could be plucked a lot easier. Not a big deal when you're raised around farms. Helped my Grandpa butcher, cut and wrap steers also.
I think her idea is bull, but she should be allowed to express it.
Chickens and other animals put on earth for man's use have always been slaughtered.
There is no reason to hide it.
It's a done deal.
But "art"?
Nah.
Helloooooo - this is not Art, this will never be Art, and anyone who tries to pass it off as Art is a con artist. Amber Hansen should be ridden out of town on a rail and any piece of trash she tries to pass off as Art from this day forward should be ignored. Hopefully, the Art society will blacklist her forever.
Hey some guy got away with pissing on a picture of Jesus.
(and no one beheaded him)
Gotta love art.
Bottom line, Lawrence City must approve the "installation" if it occupies city property. They do not have to approve it and they should not.
Wow! maybe you should make a documentary or one of those films for art. Or you could get your degree and be a quality control, cruelty control agent?
A thousand dollars is a nominal price to pay to have her "art" displayed. It would send a powerful message to millions of people.
I wonder why some wealthy vegetarian hasn't come forward and offered to pay the fine? Sure, the vegetarian is against the slaughter of animals for human consumption. But I think - in this case - the end justifies the means.
I think it is the right decision to not allow this 'art'. I know animal cruelty, I work with it daily, and it is not cruelty if the chickens are humanely slaughtered. My objection is that no one should have to see this if they don't want to, and I damn sure would not want my kids seeing it.