KAVLA #3: Slaughterhouse

The first public slaughterhouses or abattoirs appeared in France in the early 1800s. They became a locus for changing attitudes towards animals and how we consume, produce, and disassociate. They can only exist if we ignore them because if we think too hard about the things that go on there, we might have second thoughts. Maybe “don’t ask, don’t tell” should be their motto.

But a slaughterhouse isn’t just a house of death. It’s a space in between life and death, the road to the Underworld. Open the door and there’s darkness and death within but turn around and feel the light of the natural world on your skin. The question is: are you in a position to leave it or not? Or rather, are you the slaughterer or not? Are these the only options?

It’s a liminal space, one of transition and transformation. A living creature enters but it leaves in another form. Changed. Chopped. Killed, so others can live or find pleasure and power. Maybe a slaughterhouse exists just so we don’t eat ourselves.

Liminal, transitional, transformational, embodied, disembodied, compartmentalized, visceral. A primal, dreamlike, hidden space, where nothing is as it seems. Can there be tenderness there? Care, connection, or even love?

We want to see your artwork and read your writing on the theme of slaughterhouse seen through a queer lens. We want darkness, light, brutality, gentleness, rawness, and emotion. Really, we want whatever comes out of you. Who are we to say what that is? We’re just the ones processing it to send it out into the world for consumption.

KAVLA is an independent publication of The Queer Archive.

Submit your final works until the 30th of April 2023 to be reviewed by chief editor Konstantinos Menelaou and guest editors Florian Hetz and Olivia Typaldos using the following email: info@thequeerarchive.com

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