Sue Coe created the print "The Ark" as part of her Porkopolis series, which depicts the industrialized slaughter of animals for food. The print symbolizes an animal slaughterhouse as a turkey with a hole, representing where animals are killed and cannot return. Different animals are shown entering this hole, representing the various meats that Americans consume over a 10-year period. Coe was inspired to create the series after witnessing inhumane treatment of animals at slaughterhouses as a child. The print conveys the harsh realities of industrial animal agriculture and mass meat consumption in a symbolic manner.

1. The Ark
Dejonia Mitchell
AL488: Museum curatorial practices
April 7, 2015

2. The Ark is one print from the Porkopolis series drawn by Sue Coe. It features
a vast amount of animals entering a turkey. She was inspired to draw this series
based on her childhood experiences and visits to slaughterhouses. The Ark overall
relates to the exhibits themes of food and how people view food in different ways.
Sue Coe is one of the most influential political artists, known today. She is
best known for her works art against war, animal cruelty, human-to-human violence
and AIDS. However she is more than just an artist but an activist, writer and
educator. Many may question where she receives this creative mind, upright sprit
and dedication for her artwork. Well it all began when she was a child, at the age of
10.
Sue was born in Tamworth, England in 1951, where she grew up in front of a
slaughterhouse. As a child she could recall hearing the chains and the cries of
animals as they were be killed at the late hours of one to four in the morning. One
day a pig escaped from the slaughterhouse and she went with her mom to return the
pig. Sue only 10 at the time describes the scene as men with bloody clothing on and
pigs crying out for help, as they were being lead to their death. She later draws the
gruesome scene and called it “My Mother and I watched a pig escape” in her 2009
illustration.
Not only did growing up in front of a slaughterhouse effect they way sue saw
the world but it also shaped how she saw people. It was at this age of ten she know

3. she wanted to speck for the animals through art. As she became older she attended
The Royal College of Art in London and shortly after moved to New York were she
did works for many magazines and newspapers. Still eager to achieve her goal of
sheading light on the cruelty of slaughterhouses she began to gain entrance to
slaughterhouse do her research.
Sue explains the best way to get people to let you in a slaughterhouse is to
wait till the first day of deer season when the manager is gone. Then show up at the
factory saying that the manager said it was ok for you to have a look around, and
there you have entrance. There are about 1100 Federal inspected slaughterhouses
in the United States, there are many other privately own slaughterhouse in the US.
There is approximately 100 million pigs slaughtered a year in America and Sue
spent most of her time visiting these pig slaughterhouses and creating works of art
based upon her visits.
The history of slaughtering animals is just as horrifying today as it was back
in the early 1800’s. In the 1800’s people did most of their slaughtering in the privacy
of their backyards and was also done at the butchers market. There was also a trend
of publicly slaughtering of animals during the 1800’s in London. However in 1880
the US launched its mass production slaughtering industry. Despite the amount of
people consuming meat decreasing and the average amount of meat eaten by a
person increased, the number of factories continued to increase. By 2002 the
average American would consume about 200 pounds of meat a year.

4. Today the average meat cow does not spend their time grazing in the grass
before being hacked to death. They are feed corn in an overcrowded factory farm,
were after 14 months they are sent off to the slaughterhouse. The cows are simply
fed corn instead of grass because it makes them fatter at a quicker rate. Pigs on the
other hand spend there last days a bit different. Female pigs are breaded for four to
five years before they are slaughtered. They give birth to their young and after 10
days of nursing the young are separated from their mother and sent off for breeding
or meat. Most male pigs are sent off to Corn Belt states to grow bigger, about 250-
270lbs. and then shipped to the slaughterhouse.
The conditions in which these pigs are transported from place to place is not
safe as well, they use electric volt rods to force them into the trucks. Many pigs also
get sick and die during the transportation process. The pigs are also picked so tight
they have no room to move. Sue however doesn’t blame the workers who Slaughter,
transport, and handle the animals but the company and the people they supply.
Many of these animals are boiled alive, mutilated and butchered while still
conscious. The humane slaughter act was put in place to stop such acts of cruelty
from happening but it seems to fails for the most part in the view of the people.
Sue’s visits to 15 slaughterhouses and childhood experiences were her
overall inspiration for the Porkopolis series. Porkopolis is one of her most
empowering series because it has shaped her life in many ways. Sue is a vegan who

5. dose not eat any form of meat or dairy products. She has always been passionate
about animal cruelty since the age of ten. The main focus of the series was pigs
never the less she did not forget about the other animals being slaughtered. She
also featured cows, fish, chickens, goats, and lambs in her prints. The entire series
was about 55 prints displaying graphic scenes of animal torture in the factory
farming industry.
The series displays the actions of workers in the factories everyday to ensure
the safety and death of the animals. They sear the beaks of chickens so they don’t kill
each other and they mallet animals to death. Sue believes they too are victims to the
production line of thinking. At the end of creating this series of prints she wrote a
book called “Dead Meat”. The book summarizes the undercover practices of the
meat industry. One print in the series but not in the book that stood out the most
was ‘The Ark’.
The print illustrates a Turkey with a big hole at the bottom with a flow of
animals being fed into it. The caption on the print reads what the average meat
consumption an American will consume in 10 years. The meaning of this print is to
symbolize the slaughterhouse companies and what they represent. The big turkey
symbolizes the slaughterhouse; on the turkeys right arm is a dollar sign, which
symbolizes it being a billion dollar company. On the left arm there is a death tattoo,
which means death for the animals as they enter the mouth of the turkey. The
mouth of the turkey is where the animals are killed; the black hole ensures no

6. return. Each one of the animals displayed in the print is a part of the average
persons family meal. This ties into the theme of food and culture in our exhibit.
The ways in which we view food and the ways in which the food we eat is
mass-produced are completely different. Many people in the world are vegan and
others are meat eaters. For those who are meat eaters know that animals have to be
killed in order for them to eat meat. Some people many not be informed as to how
these animals are treated as they are be prepared to be slaughtered for their next
meal, in which some over eat and waste meat. Some may even be knowledge in the
issues and chose to eat less meat and chose to buy crate-free pork in efforts to help.
However in other culture they celebrate by feasting on meats and roasting whole
pigs. This print shows how we as Americans consume food and the amount of meat
over a ten-year span.
The Ark displays the un-pretty side of food and how the animals we eat are
treated in the process of dying so we can eat. It exhibits the ugly truth of the billion
dollar Slaughter companies and how the laws put in place to stop this type of cruelty
are not followed and over looked. However The Ark is not the only influential piece
in the series of Porkopolis that show the graphics of the slaughter scene in the
world. So the next time you eat a rib or burger think about the poor animals who
went through torture so you can eat that juicy piece of meat.