Sirens of the Lambs Favorite 

Sirens of the Lambs is created by the enigmatic street artist, Banksy. This piece was first spotted on the streets of New York City on October 10, 2013, it went viral on social media and people are posting and reposting about it. Sirens of the Lambs is a truck full of stuffed animals – plush cows, chickens, pigs, lambs, bears – that first appeared in the Meatpacking neighborhood of NYC. From there, the plan, according to Banksy’s website, is to have it tour around the city for two more weeks. The animals on the truck can be “heard” squealing, squeaking, and crying, creating a cacophony of sounds that draws attention to the piece. Footage from the artist’s website shows folks stopping to stare as Sirens of the Lambs rolls by them on the street – people gather to witness the spectacle, taking photographs and no doubt posting them to Instagram and other social media sites. The video footage captured by the artist shows a range of reactions to it – in one shot a baby cries at the sight, in another a group of men looking out from a shop advertising “prime meats” seem to be chuckling as the truck drives by.
The truck has the words “Farm Fresh Meats” lettered on the driver’s side door, but the white vinyl letters are peeling off, the body of the truck is faded and full of stains – creating the sense, in other words, that this is a truck that has been on the road for a while, that prior to being part of the Sirens of the Lambs, it was used to haul live animal bodies to slaughter. The juxtaposition of this harsh reality with the clean and cuddly-looking plush animals commands attention in a way that a truck full of live animals would not. Animals on trucks heading to slaughter are accepted as part of modern life; many people drive right by them without even taking a second look. Some don’t even notice them at all. We certainly don’t see a lot of people sharing photographs of slaughter transport trucks full of live animals through their Instagram feeds. And this is the crux of this piece – it takes a truckload of toy animals to draw attention to the cultural invisibility of actual animals in these situations. We are not used to seeing stuffed animals in this context, but we are all too used to seeing live animals in the back of slaughter trucks. So used to it, in fact, that it barely registers.
Banksy’s Sirens of the Lambs, just like Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s Social Mirror three decades earlier, draws attention to the cultural invisibility of certain aspects of our society – in this case, the animals in our contemporary food system. Like Ukeles, Banksy implicates all of us in this process through this very public piece. I wonder about the impact this piece will have on those who have the opportunity to see it.