Ruth Burke
We are Flesh, Fat and Blood (2016)
process video
What does it mean to have kinship with a cow? Touch, slow movement, proximity, being vulnerable. To feel an affectionate bond with an individual animal and simultaneously rekindle a 10,000 year covenant of domestication. In my creative work, I am physically and metaphorically chewing the cud of the human/cow relationship.
Cows are a ubiquitous presence. The wild that cows once wandered no longer exists and cows are a species domesticated yet not valued in the way a companion animal might be. Responsibility towards individual cows and the bovine species is uniquely human; considering the well-being of the sentient nonhuman world is an effective way to extend our compassion outside of our human species and overwhelming human needs.
My work reconsiders the now distant bond between humans and cows, utilizing the feminist ethics of care, in which interpersonal connection, care, and interconnectedness are virtues essential to moral action, a question of how do we respond, rather than one of what is it.