The Disassembly Line documents the working life of a rural Australian abattoir, particularly as relating to the facility’s killing floor. But the collection extends the notion of ‘disassembly’ beyond the transformation of livestock into consumable meat. Registering expressions of detachment and hyper-masculinity, Walton-Healey explores the consequences that this physically gruelling and repetitive process has for the bodies and minds of workers, and in these respects, questions the equation of economic productivity and human labour.

The Disassembly Line exhibited at Seventh Gallery (Melbourne) in December, 2016, and at The Mission To Seafarers in May, 2018. A selection of photographs was shortlisted for the Australian Photo Collective’s 2020 Stories Award, and several photographs feature as part of Grace McQuilten’s analysis in ‘Dignity and Futility: Art and Labour in a Post-Industrial World,’ an academic essay published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art.