Life Beyond A Cage

This piece is an Illustration-based Story Zine on an observation of the human-chicken relationship at a butcher shop. It began as part of a personal experience and exploration of the spaces where such human-animal relationships could be observed. Being a meat consumer myself, the experience became further nuanced as I also felt empathy towards chickens after observing them for hours and then witnessing the entire butchering process from start to finish. The project represents going from a space of personal observation to finding ways to express the grey areas of the experience via an illustration based comic strip zine, which allowed me to convey themes, otherwise difficult to articulate in words or text. It allowed me to bring out the space and its nuances without the gore, and heaviness otherwise attached to it. The crossing over in this instance involves transitioning from personal observation and perspectives to empathy, communication, expression and awareness.