Hong Kong, 2012

DEAD OR ALIVE, real or represented in the form of statues or soft toys, animals are always sources of enchantment for the human beings. Each child feels a primal attraction towards those other living beings that populate the earth. They are conceived as toys, tools for work, companionship and nutrition. Man continues to love them, enslave them, eat them, imprison them, deify them. They are the protagonists of almost every comic and game, they are exalted and just as massacred. I continue to be somehow attracted to every animal, whether it is alive or dead, wild or made out of plastic, free or defeated. If it were in my power, I would close the large aquariums tomorrow but I must admit that I love to stay there for hours. Few things scream justice like zoos, yet the ability to see animals up close remains a call I pretend not to hear. Although diving and watching underwater is my favorite activity, I still enjoy visiting the fish markets. I don’t do it anymore but I really like fishing. I can’t pretend that I didn’t feel a dominant emotion the only time in life I hunted an animal with a weapon. I am convinced that no physically healthy human being has any reason to continue being a carnivore, yet, I seldom continue to eat meat and fish. This series of photos was born from the paradox born by the incongruent coexistence between these feelings.