By P.C. Pethick
A local video artist is looking for a few good hens…and he’s no chicken when it comes to shelling out the big bucks to find them.
Ottawa documentary maker Rob Thompson began the search, last Saturday, for two “chickens” to star in his newest project Wire, a video he says will, “raise public awareness about how animals are treated in the food industry.”
The search ended Monday when Pam Meldrum, a 27-year-old pharmacy technician, and Eric Wolf, 23, a salesman were chosen from among 74 other applicants.
A local video artist is looking for a few good hens…and he’s no chicken when it comes to shelling out the big bucks to find them.
Ottawa documentary maker Rob Thompson began the search, last Saturday, for two “chickens” to star in his newest project Wire, a video he says will, “raise public awareness about how animals are treated in the food industry.”
The search ended Monday when Pam Meldrum, a 27-year-old pharmacy technician, and Eric Wolf, 23, a salesman were chosen from among 74 other applicants.
The two participants will receive $2,500 each to live in a cage like chickens for a week.
The chicken wannabes showed up at the SAW Gallery to audition for the documentary. The scene was a colorful mosaic of performance artists, students, philosophers, and animal rights activists. Each was given the chance to tell an interview panel, made up of Thompson’s associates Ian Reid and Susan Terrill, why they should be one of the privileged chickens. The reasons they gave ranged from “personal growth” to “fighting inequality.” Few listed money as the prime objective.
“In order to be able to do it you’d have to have some other motivation,” says Reid. “I think if you were doing it only for the money it might be a little problematic.”
“The main reason (for doing this) is to test my ability to empathize,” says Pam Meldrum. “I have confidence in my ability to stay in there for a week.”
Meldrum went as far as to practice the role for the documentary. She has already spent eight hours in a small wooden cage she and her boyfriend built to give her an edge over the competition. Meldrum admits one week will be considerably more difficult under the conditions Thompson has planned.
Clad only in long-johns, running shoes, and a toque; the two participants will be cooped up in a cage slightly larger than a refrigerator. There will be enough room in the cage for the chickens to stretch out when lying down but not enough to stand up. The cage comes equipped with a curtained off port-a-pottie, but it will not have an area for the chickens to wash themselves. They will get their drinking water from a regular old garden hose and will be fed a vegetarian mash three times a day.
If you think these conditions are rough, the cage and its tenants will be on display at the SAW Gallery for one week beginning Oct. 25, where both the video camera and the public will get a chance to see how they fare.
“These are still pretty luxurious conditions when compared to battery hens, who are crammed into cages literally one on top of each other with their beaks cut off,” says Thompson.
Although Thompson is not a vegetarian himself, he says he will aim his video at society’s mistreatment of food industry animals.
“Most people know what’s going on and they’re horrified by it,” says Thompson. “Yet they still eat bacon, eggs, and meat.”