british birds association for peasant shooting (bbaps)

At the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the British government exempted the elite pastime of grouse shooting and hunting from pandemic restrictions and insinuated that musicians and artists should retrain in more ‘essential’ or ‘viable’ roles in response to the ongoing economic crisis. A neo-puritanical moralism lacquered as pandemic precautions appeared behind each word of warning, dripping with disdain towards the poor and anything deemed counter-cultural, which is to say anything outside the straitjacket of elite-dominated, normative culture. Absorbing all this, one group of formerly artistic birds retrained in the essential role of peasant shooters and, as far as can be ascertained, continue to engage in government-sponsored slaying of paupers to this day.

*All eggs used in this video were harvested from supermarket waste. Stay vegan/freegan!

** This pandemic is real, no bird nor other creature is seeking to deny nor downplay that here. The threat to our creative freedoms from reactionary conservative politics is also real. We must protect each other from both. Wear a mask. Wear a really weird mask. Wash your hands regularly. Wash off your chains to earth like dew. Make space. Make space for those whose howls have been muffled for too long.