Pig in a gestation crate

A piece for my performance art class

In this piece for my performance art class, I took on the persona of a mother pig in a gestation crate. I stayed in the crate for two hours, mouth taped shut, on display in a public place.

Behind me was a whiteboard with this text:

"I just want to stretch my legs."

If mother pigs could speak, I think that is what they'd say. Confinement, mutilation, neglect, and abuse — sadly, these are daily realities for billions of animals on factory farms [in the USA] right now. That's thousands of millions of chickens, pigs, cows, and fish. Since these animals can't advocate for themselves, the responsibility is ours to help them, or else be complicit in their suffering.

To end gestation crates, to end factory farming, to end animal abuse. To learn about how to help, just Google this:

"What is factory farming?"
"What can I do to help end factory farming?"

Feel free to take pictures, or leave feedback [by putting post-it notes on the whiteboard].

I was awestruck by how much people engaged with the message of this simple project. Some several hundreds of students must have seen it in passing. Many people stopped to take photos. Visiting tourists and groups of children on field trips at Stanford stopped by and tried to make sense of what I was doing, and dozens left thoughtful comments verbally or on post-it notes. If you're thinking of staging an action like this one, let me know and I can share thoughts and encouragement.