SELENE MAGNOLIA GATTI
Long Shadow

Welcome to the Anthropocene, marked by the ubiquitous presence of chicken bones everywhere. Eleven billion chickens, 142 million pigs, 76 million bovines, 62 million sheep, 12 million goats: this is the population of invisible animals farmed in Europe every year, that live and die on the (dis)assembly line inside factory farms.
Noise, smell, air toxicity, chronic disease, water pollution: factory farms project negative externalities that hit neighbouring communities first, transforming local ecologies and endangering health and welfare. Hydrogen sulphide, particulate pollution, ammonia, volatile organic compounds, PM2.5: besides greenhouse gases, there are numerous externalities released by factory farms, which make people sick, causing flu-like symptoms or triggering the development and deterioration of pathologies.
In a time of novel epidemics and pandemics, many scientists claim that factory farms have become dangerous pathogenic breeding grounds too.

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