166 Chickens. Not One Alike.

Droog Gallery, Amsterdam | September 2026

What happens when a living creature becomes part of an industrial production system? And what happens when we begin to see that creature as an individual again?

These questions are at the heart of Novogen, a photographic project by Hungarian artist Daniel Szalai, which I first presented at the CAN REON Festival in 2025 and brought to Droog Gallery in Amsterdam in September 2026.

The project centres on the Novogen White chicken, a breed developed specifically to produce eggs for the pharmaceutical industry, including vaccine production. Szalai photographed 166 hens individually against a neutral background. At first glance, the images resemble a scientific catalogue. But the longer you look, the more the differences emerge. Each chicken has its own posture, expression and character. No two are alike.

This is what interested me about the project. We tend to think of industrial production in terms of efficiency, uniformity and numbers. Szalai shows us the individuals behind that system. Animals that are normally valued for their biological function suddenly become visible in their own right.

Alongside the portraits, photographs trace the journey of the eggs through the pharmaceutical industry, revealing the complex relationship between nature, technology, science and economics.

At Droog, we have always been interested in questioning the systems and assumptions that shape everyday life. Novogendoes precisely that. It invites us to reconsider something we rarely think about: the living organisms behind the products and technologies we depend on.

For me, the strength of Novogen lies in its simplicity. Szalai does not need to make a grand statement. He simply asks us to look more closely. And once you have looked at 166 chickens as individuals, it becomes difficult to see them as identical again.

Renny Ramakers