Update on “The Story of Chickens”
Artist Amber Hansen, whose project, “The Story of Chickens” received support from a 2011 Rocket Grant, is currently in the process of reconfiguring plans in light of communications received from the City of Lawrence, KS, indicating the project was against city ordinances, and in response to community feedback. A full description of the reconfigured project is now available at http://rocketgrants.org/2012/02/29/the-story-of-chickens-project-update/.
The Rocket Grants program remains committed to the project as the artist engages responsively and responsibly with her local community.
Ms. Hansen’s intention throughout the project has been to engage regional residents in dialogue about the relationship between humans and the food we consume. The following is a quote from the artist:
“The slaughter of the five chickens meant to take place at the end of the “Story of Chickens” proposes full disclosure of a controversial, yet all too common ethical paradox for the omnivore (for humans to consume meat, an animal must die). The very notion that we can choose to cause a condition, yet refuse to acknowledge or make public its affect and result, veils and censors our connection to that activity.”
The artist did not design the project with the intent to defy city ordinance. Rather, the interpretation of local ordinances regarding the care and consumption of chickens has unexpectedly become part of the discussion.
Greetings, famous lizard brains!
Congratulations on becoming such an important part of this giant artwork. All your unflattering lack of factual knowledge and even more embarrassing lack of interest in improving on that absence, are now captured forever in the world-wide-dada digital archives.
You are all improv actors in an ultimate theater of the absurd, and could not have played your parts more perfectly!
The voluntary sacrifice of your dignity, credibility and civility will not be forgotten, and unknown beings of the future will be able to look back and say “Gleep, these foolish humans really earned their extinction… Good thing we kept a colony in the huma-zoo! Shall we have one for lunch?”
Yours, with boundless love (and a terminal degree),
Doctor Art