“Censored Landscapes: The Hidden Reality of Farming Animals” by Isabella La Rocca González (vegan), Part 1 of 2

Isabella La Rocca González (vegan) is an award-winning artist, writer, photographer, educator, and animal-people rights advocate based in the United States. Her book, “Censored Landscapes: The Hidden Reality of Farming Animals,” is a powerful photographic and literary project. “I decided to travel around and photograph landscapes that include sites of animal agriculture. There’s no pasture, there’s no grass. They’re warehouses where these animals are kept their whole lives in extremely confined, hellish conditions.”

“That was a very important part of this research: to display the number of animals with each landscape, to try to ‘visible-lize’ these animals that are confined in these places. I also wanted to make sure that people understand that the reality of this industry touches every one of our lives, every single day – we all eat several times a day.” “I photographed a slaughterhouse. The number was as high as over 3 million animals per year. Really, virtually all animal farming is industrialized animal farming, where there were, for example, 38,500 cows on a feedlot. This was probably the size of two city blocks where these cows were standing in their own feces.”

Ms. La Rocca González shares the role she believes art and photography play in social and environmental activism. “Especially because this is such a horrible industry, I think art can bring us in just enough so that we’re willing to look at something that many people resist or are even hostile to. Art is one of the many, many strategies to try to advocate for the animals who are being exploited, bred, confined, slaughtered by this industry.”