Today, you can still support the publication of Dániel Szalai's photobook

With the purchase of limited-edition prints, the public can still support the publication of Dániel Szalai’s photobook NOVOGEN today. The award-winning work might debut this summer under the care of The Eriskay Connection, a studio from the Netherlands.

The Novogen project turns a spotlight on a chicken breed of the same name, a special commercial hen. Novogen White eggs are used by science for vaccine development purposes. Through the investigation of breeding this special type of chicken, the work poses questions and dilemmas about human’s relation to nature and technology, and the price of our health.

At the heart of the project is an installation of 168 unique chicken portraits. This is complemented by a series of photographs documenting the living conditions of the chickens, which also follows the stages of vaccine preparation from egg-laying through selection and pre-hatching to the injection of the virus into the eggs, and the harvesting of the developed allantoic fluid saturated with viral material. The nearly one-hundred-page book, designed by Rob van Hoesel, features a reflective essay by renowned Viennese philosopher Fahim Amir in addition to the 168 iconic chicken portraits and the images documenting the process of vaccine production.