Karo Zacharska - ENDLESS HUNGER

TEETH

audio, 2021

The piece is played on herbivores’ bones that I found in a forest near human settlements. Although the acquisition of my instrument was ethical in itself, the same cannot be said of the rest of the circumstances surrounding it – animals are being driven out of their natural habitats, the forests they are native to are shrinking as a result of humans’ actions.

And even there, they are not safe, as they can fall prey to hunters who kill both for food and for their own enjoyment.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE

audio, 2020

The focus of this piece is on an animal’s last moments before death at a slaughterhouse. The viewers are encouraged to imagine themselves in its place. For the soundtrack, I used knives, the kind that butchers slit throats and cut corpses with, as well as my breath.

I believe that only by looking through the eyes of the victims can we comprehend the full extent of the cruelty happening around us every day and begin to reflect on the tens of billions of brutally murdered animals. There is no such thing as “ethical killing”.

These two pieces are a literal take on the main theme of the entire event – it is about consumption and devouring, about the unethical killing of animals by humans. I used materials directly related to death and slaughter, but alters the sounds they make and forgoes any visuals, as of all the senses, hearing is said to be most closely associated with fear.

SHOWN AT:

online exhibition Endless Hunger at Virtual Museum of the Anthropocene (2021)

concert for project Long Break at Komuna/Warszawa, Warsaw (2021)