There are around 7.4 million nesting pairs of Willow Warblers in Finland, making it our most common native wild bird. In 2020, 80 million broiler chickens were killed in Finnish slaughterhouses. If there is a bird looking at a human, the bird in question is most likely a broiler. Yet few of us have ever seen a living broiler.
A picture of a modern broiler farm is a representation of the factory farming of animals in its purest form. The bird has been turned into a product that is alive instead of living. Its aliveness and its death are governed at a biological level. The average life expectancy of a broiler is 35 days. Knowledge of the intellectual capacities and welfare of these animals is ignored, and the value of the birds is determined by their ability to generate profit.
The photographs of this exhibition were taken at broiler farms without the owners knowing about it. The purpose of the photographs is to put a face on these invisible animals and show the conditions in which they are farmed.
Through their photography, Kristo Muurimaa (b. 1975) and Juho Kerola (b. 1982) document the relationship of humans with other animals – especially with those that live at the mercy of humans. As animal rights activists, Muurimaa and Kerola have a long track record of exposing the status of factory farm animals in Finland.
