Title: Iowa Pigs
Medium: Digitally printed, hand-bound accordion book; conte, graphite, ink, digital collage, found documents, text and binding by Margaret Yapp
Dimensions: 5 in. W x 6.75 in. H; 17 pages
Date: 2022
Illustrated accordion book made in collaboration with Iowan poet, Margaret Yapp, reflecting on the sociopolitical intersections between Iowan pork industries, electoral politics, COVID regulations, and environmental collapse.
Click here for page by page transcript of written content.
Click here for audio recording of written content.
Alt Text: Front cover. Front is white paper, with large, all capitalized, serif font reading "IOWA PIGS," with "IOWA" all black, and "PIGS" black line with white interior. On left, descending from top of page, behind "IOWA," stopping down a third of the page are two uniform columns of small ovals, akin to slats in livestock trailers. This same pattern is present in same spot throughout entire book.
Alt Text: Left page, on left side in two columns descending down are sequential photos featuring view from dark interior of livestock trailer. Another is present on right page in upper right corner. Also on right page is fragment of upside-down graph on water hypoxia. In front of graph are two square frames, one a distorted drawing Kim Reynolds smiling, the other Ashton Kutcher.
Alt Text: Left page, remaining view of water hypoxia graph continues from last spread. Right page, in addition to repeated elements (oval pattern and photo in upper right corner) is larger frame on bottom half of page, depicting a drawing of some sort of room. Partial subtitles on frame read "Vents are sealed, heat and steam vented - facility to raise tem - to lethal levels."
Alt Text: Spanning spread is a black bar, overlaid with three drawn/labeled instructional images on intubation. Red ink is painted over lung areas. Beneath images, words, partially visible, read "virus, avoiding the plant floor, they denied the existence of 'confirmed cases' at the plant to work - directed supervisors to ignore symptoms of COVID-19 to continue to work and allegedly urged-"
Alt Text: Left page, in upper half, is a pixelated screenshot of house listing valued at $1.6 million. Overlaid this are two frames, one a distorted drawing of smiling Jeff Hansen, the other Deb Hansen. Right page, in lower half is drawing of room with figure standing among piles of carcasses. Partial subtitles read "Later, workers, manu - kill any survivors w - stun bolt gun."
Alt Text: Left page, in center of page is grid with two rows of three images in sequence, depicting drawing of same figure in carcass room from prior spread, walking slowly through carcasses. Right page, stretching off of right edge of page is partial view of water oxygen map, areas of low oxygen in deep red.
Alt Text: Left page, remainder of water oxygen graph continues into view from left border. Right page, in lower half is drawing of room with piles of carcasses, workers no longer visible. Partial subtitles read "The corpses of thou - are then cleared wi - bulldozer."
Alt Text: Bibliography/source page; no imagery.
Alt Text: Author/illustrator information page; no imagery.
*Disregard pink paper from earlier documentation requiring obscuring of artist name