Selected-Feedlots — Mishka Henner

Feedlots (2012–13) reveals the hidden architecture of industrial cattle farming across the American Midwest. Seen from satellites hundreds of miles above, the sprawling grids, waste lagoons, and engineered pens appear almost painterly, yet they expose the brutal efficiency of a system designed to maximise profit from every living body. Because photographing feedlots on the ground was often prohibited under Ag-Gag laws, these aerial views offer a rare glimpse into landscapes intended to remain unseen.

“I first came across these sites on Google Earth and had no idea what I was seeing. From above, the mass and density of black and white dots looked almost microbial. Only later did I learn they were feedlots—vast farms designed to fatten cattle for slaughter in the minimum time possible and for maximum profit. Where it once took five years for a cow to reach full weight, today the process has been engineered down to less than 18 months.

This acceleration depends on growth hormones, antibiotics, and an industrial logic applied to every aspect of the feedlot’s design: from the number of cattle crammed into each pen, to the channels carrying waste into lagoons of urine and manure, their chemical mix producing surreal hues visible from space. Although these pictures depict industrial farming, I also see them as portraits of a wider cultural mindset—an attitude toward life and death that extends far beyond the pens. Forbidden to photograph on the ground by Ag-Gag laws, these landscapes are paradoxically hidden in plain sight, their full scale only revealed when viewed from hundreds of miles above.”

— Mishka Henner

SELECTED PRESS