Imagined Lines and Alibis, 2017
HD Video with audio, 14:52

We all kill, though most of us delegate the responsibility to others. So what do I learn from bleeding a mammal with my own hand? I did not have to kill to survive. And yet, all of the alternatives carry their own burden of designating who lives and who dies and how. Imagined Lines and Alibis is simultaneously a portrait of a hunter living out the fantasy of the 'American west,' and a self-portrait of the artist, coming to terms with the place that is the site of this fantasy, and with being a life-long meat eater.

We watch Miriam learn to shoot, stalk, kill, and skin a pair of wild hares, while John narrates his relationship to the animals he hunts and the world he inhabits, through his guidance and instructions. A poetic investigation into the labor, pleasure and horror of shooting guns and transforming life into flesh - into meat.

Chapter I of Survival Trilogy, a Creative Capital supported project
Part of the exhibition I Did Not Have to Kill in Order to Survive, Museum of Fine Art, Split Croatia