Moral shocks to invoke compassion: depicting the suffering and death of animals in animal research and testing facilities

This article presents a preposterous history of moral shocks regarding animals in research and testing facilities. Moral shock is a concept developed by James M. Jasper. It reveals how protest images of suffering animals, as a consequence of research and testing procedures, produce visceral effects in humans and can unsettle a subject’s expectations. However, can art that depicts animal suffering and death in animal research and testing facilities engender a moral shock? If so, how can such artworks create a moral shock and what impacts does this have upon the viewer? The works selected for this cultural analysis are by notable artists who have addressed animal suffering and death within these scientific-organizational spaces. The first is a painting by Sue Coe called Baboon heart transplant (1985) and the second is Nicole Cataldo-Davies’ endurance performance about cosmetic testing on animals performed on April 24, 2012. By way of cultural analysis—informed by the thought of Anat Pick, Simone Weil and Elaine Scarry—both Coe and Cataldo-Davies can capture the pain that animals experience in such scientific-organizational space. As such, this encourages the viewer to experience moral shock and subsequent compassion for these vulnerable, neglected and sacred creatures, perhaps even engaging in some forms of political agitation motivated by the experience.