Vistu manifests (Manifesto of Chickens)

The performance "Chicken Manifesto" is an artistic expression of civic activism. With this performance I encourage the audience to reflect on a form of consumerism that is introduced in everyday life - the use of animals for food. People have long perceived animals as objects of their own needs, whether for food or as a source of business and profit. The consumption of animals is facilitated by modern accessibility - a product readily available at the point of sale, ready for immediate preparation and no longer requiring the consumer to have specific knowledge of how to extract an edible product from a carcass. In industry, the chicken's only value is as a raw material for food, without giving each individual being the opportunity to experience the full spectrum of life as a sentient being. For two years I have been observing the life of a bird, experiencing its personality and individuality. The theme of the 2023 performance festival "Starptelpa" is "Collaborative Authorship" - I address this theme directly in an interspecies aspect - human and bird, as well as indirectly - by involving the audience of the performance.

Riga Performance festival “Starptelpa” 2023, Photo: Kristaps Dubļāns (lsm.lv)
Manifesto of Chickens
We, originating from the tropical jungles of Southeast Asia, domesticated 8,000 years ago for a "nice home life"... Now seeded in the world numbering up to 26 billion! And why - not for the upbringing of our children, not for just being, but for man's sake, for his gastrological desires!
We, the chickens, demand:
Stop eating us. It’s simple. Just stop. Eating.
Us.
If you can't stop eating us right now, then let us live the way our ancestors lived - we want a jungle, a local one will be fine, and the freedom to lay our eggs wherever we want, not in shitty rents where they shingle in the middle of pointlesness.
Stop demanding of us! What do you want our eggs for? We have to spend a year pushing them out of our bodies daily, standing with our legs wide open. And you're so busy making your morning omelette? We, the egg layers, live until we are a year and a half old and then we die. Only death awaits us. Of course, death awaits you too, but you are not totally oppressed and incapacitated.
And fry a pancake without an egg! It will hold together, because gluten is needed, not my egg! Oh, you captive slug of habit!
Say no to caged life! A room the size of an A4 page does not make a studio apartment. We peck at ourselves in anxiety and peck at our sisters... No place to turn around... We peck in spite of the fact that they cut off our beaks without anaesthetic. Don't buy an egg laid by a caged hen.
But barn life sounds good, doesn't it? That's what we're offered. 6000 individuals in one place. We walk on a shit, carpet not a red carpet there. No room for our wings. We need our cock and our freedom! We do not hear our own breathing there, how loud the agony around us is.
In this egg-laying industry, day-old roosters are thrown alive into the meat grinder because they will not produce eggs... Sometimes they are put in bags and thrown into the bin, as unnecessary by-products, as unsorted waste. Stop this genocide! Find out what the real price of eggs is!
Stop swallowing us with your big mouths, biting with your white teeth! We demand a free life! A chicken fillet is a chickens body, a chicken skin is a chickens skin, a chicken liver is a chickens liver! Stop grabbing us before we know what childhood, adolescence and adulthood are! Yes, I am talking about broilers. You are eating someone who is forty days old! Days! The ones whose flesh is torn to fillets, whose legs are broken to pieces, whose wings are torn off - they are not free to fly... Forty days!
KFC's multi-winged bucket is looking at you, huh? You want to fill your stomach fast, but for me it's life at the speed of light ... Do you understand?
We demand a life and habitat fit for our species! You, man, count the hours, days and years of your life, becoming wealthy and wise, you are not harvested for consumption a month and a half after your birth ... Listen to us purr, realise that we will recognise Your face! We need sand baths, sun baths, so that we shine bright in the light! We need to scratch, we need to move, we need to jump, we need to run!
Please, dear man, stop eating us! Little by little, little by little. Thank You.
Chickens
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