Maria de la Iglesia, 26th May 2010Making the everyday visible.

‘How we should treat animals’ is an ‘ethical issue’But what kind of beings are we for whom this is an ‘issue’? (Diamond 2008:51)

Animal suffering caused by meat and dairy consumption and human moral responsibility toward it is still only marginally debated today. Not only do we lack awareness towards such widespread suffering but also something that is part of our everyday life is actually hidden and unspoken. Tomaso Ausili’s photos of the slaughterhouse are without doubt an effort to make the public conscious of animal suffering by bringing us the everyday experience of it with all its crudity. As such, for Tomas Ausili’s photos to win the 3rd prize in contemporary issues, ‘stories’ section of the World Photo Press 2010, as well as the "L'Iris d'Or" winner of the 2010 Sony World Photography Awards, presents a significant case worth exploring. In what follows I will examine Tomaso Ausili’s photographs of the slaughterhouse and the significance of his winning these prestigious awards in order to explore whether the jury’s decision could be seen as having a broader echo of a society more conscientious of animal’s suffering. I will argue that, notwithstanding Ausili’s efforts are a positive step towards the awareness of society, on the contrary, these photographs remain an exceptional case, heaped by the sensationalism transmitted in the photos and as a result representing very little increase in general awareness of society towards animal suffering.

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Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 1

The presence of blood in the images has the effect of shocking the observer. Images 1,2,3,7,8,10 display death at its best with an overload of blood. The viewer could identify with the flesh and blood as their own and this may lead to confusion, a potentially unsettling reality: to believe that their spilt blood means something different from ours (Spigel, 2007:12). The viewer is not used to being exposed to such a gory display of blood since the images of the Holocaust. The type of death we see in the images doesn’t seem to be part of a clinical and accurate procedure. The blood splattered all around shows us that the killing is intense. These images are only possible because they are non human animals and for many they are different from us, consequently these animals must serve us and we may use them in any way that we wish.

Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 2

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Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 3

Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 4

Image four depicts a cow being killed with a gun. This could be the most identifiable example of suffering of the whole series as it is caught at the moment of death. The wide open eyes of the cow show signs of panic and the foam coming out of his mouth as a result of the pain may make the viewer identify them as human symptoms and consider the suffering of animals during these procedures.

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Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 5

Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 6

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The fifth and sixth images deal with the animals’ gaze looking straight to the viewer. As Berger (2009:13) says ‘the eyes of an animal when they consider a man are attentive and wary’. The viewer could easily understand by looking at the sheep or the pig that they are feeling some sort of fear or panic. This understanding could be related to our similarities with non human animals. This would help the viewer to understand how humans relate with animals in modern societies and the suffering they endure.

Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 7 (World Press Photo 2010) photo 8

Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 9

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Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse(World Press Photo 2010) photo 10 (World Press Photo 2010) photo 11

Tommaso Ausili - Slaughterhouse (World Press Photo 2010) photo 12

The humanness of the animals could also be seen as Ausili’s capacity to know how to inspire public consciousness. In photos seven to twelve the compositions and colours

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help the viewer to almost see a human body. The animals here are depicted as if they were quasi human. The animal becomes the bearer of purely human concerns (Burt 2007: 290) which means we care about them only because they look human and still deny their animal nature.

On the whole, there is no doubt that Ausili achieves his aim of making the everydayness of animal suffering visible with all its crudity. However, that his photos have won the award cannot be seen as having met an already aware society on this issue. Firstly they remain an exception amongst the more discussed and debated issues of war, suffering and the other. Secondly, their sensationalism could be seen as having been the key for shocking the jury and not for the jury to see within these photographs an issue that is under debate in the broader society.

These set of images are still an exception. Other sets of images regarding animal suffering and slaughterhouse have won prestigious awards. For example photographer Elzbieta Piekacz won First Prize at Pressfoto 2007, Poland, with the documentary of the street corner slaughterhouses of China, where domestic dogs are as common to eat as pigs and goats.

These set of images are different to our case study because in Western society we have commonly accepted that dogs are not to eat but rather to own as pets. The viewer feels detached and horrified by these images that come from far away, China. In our case study the images come from Europe and the animals we see suffering are part of our diet and clothing, we can not feel detached from it, we are unavoidably the cause of it. In this way the photographs of Ausili are exceptional in the context of renowned photography awards, no other images in slaughterhouse in Europe have won before. This very fact could be part of the reason for these images to win.

The images of Ausili are sensationalists and as a paradox they are part of the everyday life. These types of images are not new to most of the viewers; we are somehow conscious that this is what happens everyday, in most of the world, in order to feed a large quantity of humans. Yet for some, these images are disturbing and still raise some ethical concern. In Western society there is tendency to systematically transcend or forgive the ordinary in human existence since at least Plato’s Cave (Cavell, 2008:94). We tend to take for granted

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the ordinary in our everyday life without even reflecting upon it. Where our food and clothing come from is taking for granted by many. The responses to breeding animals for food and clothing are indeed extreme, they range goes from horror to indifference. For Cavell (2008: 94) the difference between the issue of breeding animals for food and other issues like war, abortion or euthanasia among others would be that most of the members in our society have to deal with it everyday. Cavell is talking here about our everyday food and clothing choices. Every time we choose to consume meat or dairy or wear leather, we are in someway supporting what the images of Ausili represent which makes it harder to look at the images.

How is it possible then to be confronted daily with this reality and yet still cease to see it? American sociologist Philip Slater (1970: 21) answers this question with what he terms “The Toilet Assumption”, which is to remove the difficulties, matters or unwanted complexities from our vision ‘Our approach to social problems is to decrease their visibility’ (Slater 1970:21). Berger support this theory when he states that human veneration for animals has disappeared with urbanization and animals has disappeared from our lives (Berger 2009:12) There is a historical background that links the visual to the moral, which is important to explain the power of animal imagery. The animals are not only linked in to a civilized behaviour, they are completely related to the development of a technology that will enhance their visibility (Burt 2007: 293) In our case this is photography supported by photojournalist competitions that allow the viewer to encounter this reality. This context will help determine the meaning of the images to the viewer.

One could argue that the immediate response to these images is the creation of a consensus among us against animal suffering. But far from this they affect few people. These photographs are part of the way our society survives and the majority has accepted it. We may feel discomfort when exposed to this reality and could prefer not to see it and to keep it hidden. These sets of photographs are at the same time a result of the jury’s conscious decision of what news and which images are worthy of being shown and which are not. The photographs fulfill the expectations of the any photojournalists’ awards: they are shocking images, they are part of our everyday life and the quality and composition of the images are high. They do not necessarily represent an increase in society regarding the suffering of the animals.

Conclusion In conclusion this is a complex issue with no clear answers. Ausili’s efforts to make the day-to-day suffering of animals visible have achieved shocking the jury. However, whether the jury’s decision is an echo of society’s increased awareness of the issue or not remains unclear and arguably could be just a sensationalist and marginal project. On the other hand, regardless of the intentions of the jury and the photographer, these images are going to be seen by a large number of people and could positively have an affect in some of them leading to an action. I also believe that overexposure to these images would eventually have the effect of indifference, as Sontag (2003:73) wrote ‘shock can become familiar’. In regards to the animals, there is another layer to shocking images, which is one of ethical and moral radically different opinions about our responsibility towards non human animals.

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Photographs

Ausili, Tommaso, 2010 The hidden death. Available at: http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=1747&type=byname&Itemid=258&bandwidth=high [Accessed 15 May 2010]

Piekacz, Elzbieta, 2007 Infierno. Available at: http://www.photoicon.com/galleries_gallery/34/10 [Accessed 17 May 2010]

Bibliography

Berger, J., 2009. Why look at animals? London: Penguin Books.

Burt, J., 2007. The illumination of the animal kingdom: the role of light and electricity in animal representation. In L. Kalof and A. Fitzgerald eds. The Animals reader: the essential classic and contemporary writings. New York: Oxford Internationals Publishers, 2007, pp. 289-301.

Cavell, S., 2008. Companionable thinking. In Cavell, S., et al., Philosophy and animal life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, pp.91-126.

Diamond, C., 2008. The difficulty of reality and the difficulty of philosophy. In Cavell, S., et al., Philosophy and animal life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, pp. 43-90.

Slater, P., 1970. The pursuit of loneliness: American culture at the breaking poit. Boston: Beacon.

Sontag, S., 2003. Regarding the pain of others. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

Spiegel, M., 2007. In defence of slavery. In L. Kalof and A. Fitzgerald eds. The Animals reader: the essential classic and contemporary writings. New York: Oxford Internationals Publishers, 2007, pp

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