On Pig Butchery, & the Art of Communication: Farmrun [Video]

Three days ago, I shot a pig with a rifle.

Immediately following, Brandon put a knife in its throat and cut both of its carotid arteries.  Blood flowed acquiescently onto the hay beneath our feet. The pig died with grace and dignity.

There is an immeasurable elegance that exists in taking the life of an animal in order to sustain lives. It is invariably tempered by the grave weight of ending a life, irrespective of its end. This paradoxical beauty is the underlying inspiration for, and ultimately the point of, our video series On The Anatomy Of Thrift (watch the video below).

Beyond demonstrating the splendor of pork butchery, we intend to document the parallel beauty that suffuses the ongoing revival of traditional agricultural practices and a reinvigoration of agri-centric culture, both of which are paramount in the reclamation of a functional food system and need to be communicated more eloquently to the public.

Though the Agrarian Renaissance is rapidly expanding around the country, there remains a significant cognitive gap among much of our population. Ew, is that blood? You kill pigs? Murderer.

Thus, communication becomes equally important as practice. If we can properly, honestly, and beautifully convey what we do, why we do it, and even how we do what we do, the Renaissance will be more efficacious.

Even with the understanding that communication is imperative, however, it is no small undertaking to produce savvy media that will actually reach people.

It was from this theory that Farmrun was born, and it is on this platform we initiate the open call to filmmakers, designers, illustrators, web developers, photographers, anyone and everyone, to engage in this good work and spread the message.

Recent technological innovations have, in truly magnificent ways, democratized the field of media production, in the form of monetarily accessible, high quality machinery, and access to instantaneous distribution to the world via the internet.

The true beauty of the resources and infrastructure available to us is reflective of the nature of the Agrarian Renaissance, which is necessarily an inclusive movement. We need every body that is willing an able to join up and start growing.

Neither agricultural media production nor farming are proprietary practices. They belong to nobody and everybody. As we move forward, the two must go hand in hand. At this point in time, it is critical that as many able minds as possible join into the productive agrarian ranks.

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Farmrun is the production studio and storytelling platform of Andrew Plotsky. Farmrun is the first dedicated agricultural production studio in the country. It is our intention to serve the needs of the burgeoning agrarian renaissance by means of producing beautiful media for agricultural enterprises. Farmrun is based on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound, where Andrew is currently working as an apprentice to Farmstead Meatsmith, a traditional animal processing business.