Auschwitz Begins Whenever Someone Looks at a Slaughterhouse and Thinks, 2009

When I was born, food rationing from WW2 was still in effect. On the outskirts of London there was evidence of bombing. Entire houses were rubble. The school was quickly assembled tin shacks. We also lived in front of a hog farm, and down the street from a slaughterhouse and a memorial to WW1. The hogs would be screaming all night, as they were loaded into the slaughterhouse. From the slaughterhouse to my house, where the cheapest ‘food’, was white lard on white bread. As a child, I watched a pig escape the slaughterhouse, and the men with bloodied aprons chase the pig through traffic to be captured. People thought it was funny. I had such a feeling of knowing dread, and walked into the slaughterhouse, following the captured pig. As a child and a neighbor, I was allowed inside, to witness the slaughter. Since then, have been in 40 different slaughterhouses, to draw, and dedicated my work to the animals. It’s living in an alternative universe, to care, when so many, are indifferent. Going vegan is not enough, but it is the one simple act of non violence, we can all do, today."