Relation-Chute is a web-based art project that archives photographs, videos, text, and viewer comments. These materials are reflections on the act of slaughter, religious observance, and consumption. The website can be viewed at http://relationchute.aa.uic.edu

Relation-Chute was instigated by images of qurbani (religious sacrifice) of animals, and their resonance with images of death and destruction that circulate commonly in the media. Through this work, I attempt to change my relationship to pain and death by participating in the act of slaughtering animals for consumption. Over the last few months I have to various slaughterhouses in Illinois to learn how to slaughter animals. The method used for slaughter is Zabiha Halal practiced by Muslims.

Additionally, the project aims to provide fodder to contemplate our difficulty in understanding the complexities of visual images of death. The material on the website hopes to confront the viewer, alienated from the actual experience of killing with fragmentary sensory knowledge of the act. Thus by implicating the viewer as a distant onlooker I want to invigorate dialogue about spectatorship and the singularity of the experience of pain and death.

Relation-Chute has been funded by Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois in Chicago.