In Malaysia, a type of chicken called the Serama is bred not for consumption but for its performance abilities and look. Chicken pageants are held in villages across the country; like at dog shows, owners bring their animals and display them for minutes at a time while judges rank them according to their feathers, strut, and disposition.
Ernest Goh, a thirty-five-year-old photographer from Singapore, first encountered these competitions when traveling across Malaysia in 2013. Goh, who is interested in how humans perceive animals, set up a photo studio on location, and began photographing the chickens with the intent of discovering, as he writes in a statement about the work, “who they were, not what they were.” Goh met with chicken enthusiasts and breeders, who, as Goh describes, “often regard the chickens as warriors ready for battle.” He acknowledged that it is a “strange image you’d want to project onto a chicken,” but, after photographing the Seramas, he understood. “From the perspective of the photographer, the Serama seems more like a runway model!” he writes.
Above is a selection of Goh’s photographs of the Serama and other breeds from his most recent book, “Cocks.”
All photographs by Ernest Goh.