If Animals Could Reside in the Supreme Court

“If Animals Could Judge” is the name of this highly inventive Swiss campaign for animal rights from 2013. Produced as a collaborative creative effort between the advertising agency Ruf Lanz from Switzerland and the Vienna-based Bulgarian designer Mladen Penev, the campaign is a fresh, sobering and intelligent perspective of the egoic aspect of human power.

Their client, an association for protection of animal rights received a series of photos made in the Staudinger+Franke studio and retouched by Mladen. The series consists of portraits of domestic animals – a cat, a horse, an Afghan hound and a sheep, all wearing white wigs that resemble the traditional court dress of male advocates. A simple, yet very strong ethical message. What it’s like to be judged by animal’s eyes?