Andrew’s Factory Farm Experience

Transcript

Andrew Skowron: With images, I can reveal the truth that is locked behind the walls of the farms, walls of truck trailers, or slaughterhouse gates.

My conscious and empathetic lifestyle started many years before the adventure with photography. I spent most of my childhood in the countryside, where I grew up among livestock and everything that happened around. It was normal and great fun for me, a city boy, to catch a hen for Sunday lunch or to slaughter a pig, which was a great celebration in the countryside. The countryside taught me this normality. The animal breeding system followed one pattern. We feed, we care, we pet. Then we kill. This has always been the case, and no one denied it. As a child, I knew no other truth.

Sometimes, when I was growing up, the environment changed, and I started seeing the world differently. Empathy matured. It prevailed over this normality. More and more, I came to the conclusion that it doesn't suit me. What was normal, what was acceptable, eventually became abnormal and not acceptable. There was an inner rebellion that it didn't have to be that way. That I have to change something. Over time, this led to the beginning of my animal activism.

I quit my job in the media, and with a lot of experience, I started working for animal rights activism. I chose activism with the camera because that's where I feel best. With images, I can reveal the truth that is locked behind the walls of the farms, walls of truck trailers, or slaughterhouse gates. A camera is a weapon, and photos are the bullet that makes a hole in the wall, and through this gap, I want to show how it really is. That it is not like in cheerful TV commercials. It is a completely different world. It is a world of sorrow, pain, and suffering. That's why I do this. I bring the truth to the surface even if it is uncomfortable. In my opinion, one photo can say more than an hour of argument battles.

I consider my photo document to be finished only when I return to the same place and I can see that the farm has closed. Only empty cages and a broken wall remain.

I wish people would draw one conclusion when they see my photos: that there is no consent to such cruelty. People should think more, to go beyond the framework of consumerism. They should verify from where and how is made what they see on store shelves. That it's not the final product they see. I enjoy it when people are influenced by my photos and they change their eating habits, even limit them. This is partly the way to my satisfaction about the work I do. We need social awareness of truth, what the meat industry hides. My job in all of this is to bring empathy in people through the images.

Finally, let's change people's consciousness through systemic changes and dietary changes. Let's look at this closed, animal world through the prism of the right to life, and not as a commodity and profit. First of all, let's limit the actions of industrial farms. Be brave and aware. Take action.