Censored Landscapes unveils the hidden reality of farming animals, offering a powerful and emotionally charged exploration. Photographs, essays, poetry, and research together tell a factual story about the most abusive industry of the twenty-first century. Isabella La Rocca González’s lens captures the haunting beauty of landscapes that portray the animal agricultural industry. A number displayed with each image represents the lives imprisoned within the facility, drawing attention to the magnitude of suffering behind the banal exteriors. Portraits of nonhuman animals who have been confined in such facilities are emblematic of the vast number of animals whose individuality, sentience, and beauty are obliterated by the industry.
Censored Landscapes maintains a lyrical quality through evocative photographs, poetry, and personal narrative. The project also provides a robust basis in verifiable facts and scientific research. Readers are encouraged to confront the intricate web of connections between animal agriculture, animal suffering, environmental devastation, worker exploitation, human health, economic political structures, and social justice. This book is a call to action, a revelation of the invisible, and an opportunity to see, feel, and make a difference.
“This is perhaps the most powerful indictment against animal agriculture I’ve ever encountered. It gave me an eerie feeling of deafening silence, while inviting a sliver of hope.”—Dr. Jonathan Balcombe, author of Super Fly, What a Fish Knows, Second Nature, and Pleasurable Kingdom
“Censored Landscapes is an eye-opening testament to the profound impact of art in unveiling the hidden truths of our world. Among the most egregious and disturbing unseen truths concerns the abusive mistreatment of so-called food animals who, despite being highly sentient, feeling beings, are treated as if they are unfeeling objects whose only purpose in life is to provide food for carnivorous humans. It’s a matter of who is for dinner, not what is for dinner. Through powerful photographs, insightful text, and detailed research, Isabella La Rocca González exposes an industry built on webs of social inequality and injustices and the violent exploitation of innocent animals. With meticulous attention to detail and poignant storytelling, Censored Landscapes invites readers to confront uncomfortable truths with empathy and compassion. In a world grappling with ethical dilemmas and ecological crises, this timely work demonstrates the transformative power of art and advocacy to provoke thought and ignite action. Censored Landscapes not only informs but also draws the connection between animal agriculture and every facet of our lives. This timely work is a call to action for a more just and equitable world.”—Marc Bekoff, PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder, author of The Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age, and The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter
“The architecture of power and control is so blatant and banal, it’s almost invisible. Almost, but not to this photographer. For the animals, the innocent, the gentle, these places of terror and grief scar the land. The stench and cries are carried by the wind and water, as they have memory. Roads, like arteries, end at a slaughterhouse in America, from the slaughterhouse to your house. You consume their terror. The portraits of the few refugees who have found shelter, a home, are poignantly contrasted with the trillion farmed animals born into mechanized death. Meticulously documented facts and essays in this book support urgency to change, for the road we are on is coming to an end.”—Sue Coe, artist and author of The Animals’ Manifesto, The Ghosts of Our Meat, Dead Meat, and Cruel
“Kept at a distance by belligerent guards, Isabella La Rocca González has produced a suite of photographs of the death factories that, even from afar, give off a haunting, sinister air. Censored Landscapes is a notable addition to the mounting documentation of the darkest scandal of our age.”—JM Coetzee, author of The Lives of Animals, Elizabeth Costello, and Disgrace; winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
“Censored Landscapes is a cerebral yet visceral exploration of the largely hidden world of industrial animal agriculture. La Rocca González takes an inventive approach to the subject by presenting a mosaic of narratives and photographs that engage left- and right-brain connections to farmed animals. Industry ‘fact sheets’ are interwoven with passages from iconic authors such as Upton Sinclair and Rainer Maria Rilke as well as the author’s own narrative, including the intimate story of Henry the turkey. The trademark landscape photos of animal facilities throughout the book express a sense of dystopia, brutality, and aversion to nature. Censored Landscapes is an essential part of the animal liberation lexicon.”—Robert Grillo, founder and director of Free from Harm, author of Farm to Fable: The Fictions of Our Animal-Consuming Culture
“Censored Landscapes merges poetry, clearly stated facts, lucid prose, and the stunning photography of a well-informed and dedicated scholar—a heart-wrenching and persuasive combination.”—Dr. Lisa Kemmerer (lisakemmerer.com), professor emerita, founder of Tapestry (tapestryofpeace.org), author of Eating Earth
“Censored Landscapes is a thorough, thoughtful, and beautiful contribution to our thinking about sentience and ethics. Along with La Rocca González’ prose, her photographs of quiet rural landscapes afford the viewer both time and autonomy to absorb and comprehend a new point of view of farmed animals. This is a well-crafted and revelatory book.”—Jo-Anne McArthur, photojournalist and founder of We Animals Media
“At an early age I became aware that animal agriculture is an inherently cruel and destructive business. Censored Landscapes combines visual artistry, deeply personal storytelling, poignant poetry, and impactful research to reveal not only the colossal atrocity against nonhuman animals, but the resulting environmental devastation and interrelated systemic oppressions. Censored Landscapes is an urgently needed confrontation with the horrifying reality of farming animals.”—Moby
“Isabella takes us on a journey that both zooms in on the poignant lives of animals freed from modern industrial agriculture and zooms out to the fortress-like exteriors of animal production facilities. The book offers a compelling personal view of what defines ‘censored landscapes’ that is often lonely, desolate, and complex. This unexpected coffee table masterpiece challenges you to ‘not look away’ but rather to analyze the unassuming architecture of today’s animal agricultural landscapes that lack a sense of humanity within its barbed-wire boundaries.”—Christine Morrissey, executive director of Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary
“Censored Landscapes is a powerful, thought provoking, timely text that is a must read for all. This book captures the true story of the abuse, oppression, pain, sadness, and loneliness of nonhuman animals in factory farms and other places of violence toward nonhuman animals. There are not enough books, films, and posters showing the true reality of terrorism toward nonhuman animals.”—Dr. Anthony J. Nocella II, cofounder and executive director of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, editor of Peace Studies Journal
