New York-based artist Miru Kim is no stranger to getting naked in the name of art (or some light exhibitionism), but her latest series has taken matters a bit further. The Pig That Therefore I Am involves Miru posing next to pigs in factory farms, completely nude. Obviously a pretty weird experience, it's simultaneously sensual and grotesque. After each shoot, she’d bathe with vinegar and scrub her skin raw.

The images are at the very least gripping, and finding Kim’s body amongst the pigs sometimes feels like a warped game of Where’s Waldo. It's probably best if she describes the experience herself:

Listening carefully to the cacophony of echoing squeals and groans over a loud, mechanical hum, I unlatched the powder-coated steel door, discolored to a sickly beige and mottled with yellowish brown. As soon as the door swung open, hundreds of startled pigs jumped to their feet in unison with deep grunts and ran away from the fences, which in turn frightened me.

A sow has a very tender and warm underbelly. The firm, protruding teats get caught momentarily between my fingers as I stroke the belly back and forth. Then, as I rub my shoulder against the flank, I start to feel the rough bristles on my shoulder. She suddenly nudges me with her snout disc. Her brute force pushes me off, and I crawl next to other pigs.

As I lay down next to a sow weighing 500 pounds, I felt the warmth travel from the soft underbelly of the animal into my bare right thigh. Two bodies mingled momentarily, in the skin on skin contact. I could no longer reason whether I was feeling the pig's abdomen on my thigh, or the pig was feeling my thigh on her abdomen. The line between the subject and the object were obscured, and two souls mingled on the plane of contact.

For more of Miru Kim's work, view her site: mirukim.com.