Artist Marco Evaristti has announced that his controversial art installation, which opened over a week ago in Copenhagen, Denmark, and involved the starvation of three piglets, has been compromised.
Evaristti’s “And now you care” art piece involved a public display of three piglets that were forced to starve in an improvised cage made from two shopping carts. On Wednesday, it was reported that activists who disagreed with animal abuse stole the piglets. The artist explained that he is an animal activist, and his display was intended to raise awareness of animal suffering in mass meat and modern pig production in Denmark.
The inspiration for the art exhibit was the careless treatment that meat industries show towards their animals. Animal Protection Denmark Welfare Group states that industries breed sows to produce 20 offspring at a time while only having 14 teats to nourish. Therefore, the piglets compete for survival, ultimately leading to the starvation and demise of many animals.
Animal rights activists rescued the three pigs, Lucia, Simon, and Benjamin. Evaristti expressed his disappointment in the stolen pigs but was content that they would live good lives. According to APnews.com, many animal protection societies encourage awareness of animal suffering but do not support Evaristti’s exhibit: “They did not condone the abuse of animals.” The artist told the press that he has received various amounts of hate mail and believes people don’t realize he is an activist himself.
Although Evaristti’s display was stolen, he devised various ways to salvage this project. The first one is to get three more pigs, not to starve, but to sell to the highest bidder that would give the piglets a good life. The second idea is to steal dead offsprings from meat factories and put them on a public display to truly show people the depth of what is happening to these helpless animals.
