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2018-2019 | 720p Video | Color | Stereo Audio | BLM Wild Horse and Burrow Program | English | 00:06:36

An experimental film and performance about commodification of contested bodies, individuals in the midst of an incomprehensible whole, and the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) removes what are deemed excess wild horses and burros from public range lands, but then is burdened with caring for and maintaining these animals in BLM holding facilities. The horses are kept for many months, sometimes many years, until they can be auctioned off to meat sellers or potential owners.

The system is highly debated. Animal rights activists view the traumatic experience of the round-up (done by helicopter), and the squalor of holding facilities leading to slaughter as unnecessarily cruel; ranchers view the horses as a direct threat to quality of grazing and water access for cattle and sheep, or as possible disease vectors; politicians and citizens alike view the cost of keeping horses in a kind of purgatory as needless fiscal burden to taxpayers. Over 45,500 wild horses are currently in off-range holding facilities across the United States, and this video documents some of these individual animals in the days leading up to their auction.

This project was shot with cell phone camera in off-range corrals. No large camera gear was allowed due to physical risk. The horses are completely wild, and engage in a terrified dance with the camera. Weaver is confronted by each individual animal, and tries to center individuality, staying present with their movements. This work questions systems of economic appraisal, what is valued or devalued, what is tangibly salable, and what of the intangible is lost.

View here: https://vimeo.com/261215452