'We are caught in an inescapable network
on mutuality.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.' Martin Luther King Jr.
My work is about exploring human relationships with other life forms on Earth.
I am interested in how unconscious ways of thinking, habits and beliefs manifest themselves in the treatment of species other than humans.
I am interested in the distance between cause and effect. The geographical distance between the supermarket shelf and the factory farm. The formal distance between the individual animal and the unrecognisable mass-produced product on the shelf. The temporal distance between the daily actions of eating a quick snack and the reality of animals being raised in industrial units.
This distance seems to me to be synonymous with a whole range of damage inflicted on the natural world.
Through photography I seek to reveal connections; I seek to bring the different parts of the network of life closer together.
Biographical Information
Birgit Muller is an artist and filmmaker based in Bristol, UK. She received a degree in filmmaking and a Master's in Communication Research from the University of the West of England.
Photography has been a companion for many years and eventually moved to the foreground.
Birgit has experiences in various fields that form the inspiration for her work. Animals and farm life have played a vital part from a young age. Later her interests extended to human rights issues, working with people seeking asylum in Germany and exiles and survivors of torture in Santiago, Chile. In the UK, she ran a video production company for over ten years, specialising in creating videos for the environmental sector. Recently she has focussed entirely on her photographic practice and enjoys the possibilities the medium offers to express herself.