LENS OF LIBERATION

Instead of finding answers, I am generating questions. Instead of quoting the idealist ad progressive writing of animal rights literates and academics, I will quote my own thinking and ideas. The pure and simplistic basis to my thinking lays in my passion for non human and human animals, my passion for life.

I will begin by sharing my experiences that have so eloquently led to my passions. My love for animals has not derived from a complex process of acquisition and growth. If love could be defined in a simple manner, then I would place my experiences as the most genuine example. Animals, as humans perceive and react. Affect, effect. In this manner, I have always believed in no such  difference between non human animals ability to feel and our own. Whether suffering or experiencing happiness, our cognitive mentality does not influence the receptive capabilities. Why, if so evolved, do human animals deeply focus and indulge in the suffering of out own? Truth be told, there have been many moments in my life in which my interactions with animals have been more genuine than those with humans. I strongly believe in unconditional love, a love that is not expected, or forced, and have been surprised by the souls that have offered such. Live and love life.

Always a passionate animal rights advocate, it was not until exploring animal and human relationships in depth that I was able to personally justify the course of my studies. I can clearly remember walking into the symmetric architecture of Parrington Hall. A flight of stairs later, I found myself surrounded by a group of women, to be later joined by only one man. Among those of us was Maria Elena Garcia, ready to lead our passionate journey as soon as the wall mounted clock approached two thirty. In what seemed like ten short emotional weeks, I became conscious that my passion, first awakened by the occasional visits to the zoo with my grandmother, had never disappeared. Guided by Maria Elena, I began to think about my role in the animal rights movement. Winter brought short days, and a late afternoon focus group entirely devoted to animals. Leading this discussion based course challenged my knowledge, and pushed my thinking. I learned about ignorance, and I embraced and allowed compassion to sustain my disappointed soul.  It was during those desolate moments that I questioned my passions.  How can I create fundamental change in human and non human relationships, when we are not able to respect our own species?

It was only a little more than a year ago that I decided to stop my animal consumption. No, I don’t call myself a vegetarian; instead I focus on the root and reason of my choice: respect. For the last 15 years, I consistently challenged the act of eating meat. An Argentina native, commonly known as the land of beef, I was presented with this challenge much too often. My father took pride in his “asados”, and found a lack of respect when I refused to eat his love potioned meals. Surprisingly, when I stated that I would no longer eat animals on that stormy April day, my decision was welcomed and supported, encouraged yet defied. My mother immediately worried about my health. How would I balance my diet? Would I get all the vitamins and minerals my body needs? Together, we formulated a plan, and although I felt alone in my choice, with time I realized that my family’s support and love had always been present.

To my belief, change will only be concretely reflected once we educate our society. By introducing the reader to not only animal rights, but also to our visibly present hierarchical relationship with surrounding beings through my chosen medium photography, we will be one step closer to change. I believe that this relationship is highly encouraged by different perception mediums. Principally explored, photography creates a space in which images are suspended in time, therefore maintaining history and perspective alive. While beneficial in certain senses, artistic representation holds a definite risk: the re affirmation of our hierarchical power relationships that conspicuously oppresses the other. Instead, I choose to centralize on the  visual connection with the viewer that photography creates, while restating the perceptive relational hierarchy. I am entirely conscious that I will be portraying this hierarchy in the manner of observer versus observed, and recognize that this is the purpose of my work. By presenting a hierarchical state, and accepting that with this project I am in some ways contributing to it, this nature will be exposed in an obvious manner that will question the reader’s values and perceptions. Artistically, I do not intend in any way to run away from this seemingly always-already notion of hierarchy, but instead, to emphasize such in order to make any hierarchical oppression obvious and therefore challenged by the interpreter. Evidently, I take responsibility for the mode in which animals are represented in the self designed photography component, but also for engaging in future interpretations with the audience. In other words, I aspire to turn the viewer into a reader.

So although I can justify, clarify and rationalize my passion for animals, I have chosen for you to embark in a journey similar to mine. A journey in which you will fall in love with the characters that are protagonists in the narrative of life.