For Immediate Release:
February 14, 2024
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner
Nashville – Starting next Wednesday, PETA will show its eye-opening exhibit “Without Consent,” which explores the troubled history of experiments on animals and challenges institutions to rethink this cruel and archaic concept of science, at Centennial Park—a stone’s throw from Vanderbilt University, an institution with a troubled history of animal experimentation.
When: Wednesday, February 21, to Sunday, February 25, 12 noon–4 p.m.
Where: Centennial Park, 2500 West End Ave. (near Athena at The Parthenon and Lake Watauga), Nashville
Visitors view PETA’s “Without Consent” exhibit. Credit: PETA
Modeled after the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, “Without Consent” will be on display locally for five days. It features 28 panels with descriptions and photographs of nearly 200 animal experiments conducted at U.S. institutions from the 1920s to the present. Watch the trailer here. An interactive virtual exhibit is available here.
“‘Without Consent’ tells the true stories of animals harmed and killed in experiments that they did not and could not consent to,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on Vanderbilt and all other institutions to embrace modern, animal-free research, because having the power to exploit other species does not give us the right to do so.”
Vanderbilt was fined more than $15,000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for animal welfare violations, including an incident in which a monkey was scalded to death when her cage was run through a high-temperature cage washer while she was trapped inside.
“Without Consent” also points out that vulnerable humans—including orphans in tuberculosis and psychological experiments, immigrant women in gynecological surgeries, soldiers in LSD and poison gas tests, and impoverished Black men in syphilis experiments—were exploited in experiments. Just as society now understands that these experiments were wrong, “Without Consent” shows that we need to let a similar moral awakening guide our conduct today by extending consideration to the 110 million animals killed every year in U.S. laboratories. These animals are individuals who feel pain and fear, yet they’re robbed of their babies, force-fed chemicals, and sickened with diseases, among other atrocities.
Since its debut in 2021, “Without Consent” has traveled to 29 cities and has shared information about the horrors of experimentation with nearly 15,000 visitors. As neuroscientist and Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik describes it, “‘Without Consent,’ PETA’s new traveling exhibit, is a must-see. … Check it out in a city near you and do your part to help create a better future for all!”
After viewing “Without Consent,” more than 2,500 visitors were moved to contact their legislators, urging them to oppose animal testing and endorse the Research Modernization Deal, which offers a strategy for replacing scientifically useless tests on animals with effective human-relevant research methods.
“Without Consent” will be open to the public at Centennial Park from 12 noon to 4 p.m., February 21 to 25.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
