Daisy Thijssen is a designer and researcher with a fascination for contemporary food culture and its influence upon society. She graduated in 2016 from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam with her project Meat Up, and received the WdKA Research Award in 2017. With her hands-on approach to research, she even learned to slaughter animals, and facts about the taxidermy craft.
Meat Market aims to raise awareness of meat that was not obtained from conventionally slaughtered animals. By turning animals into unrecognisable products, we strip away the layer of cultured nostalgia we project on them. At the same time, we go on wasting meat from healthy and consumable animals because we deem it socially unacceptable. Meat Market addresses the following questions: ‘Why does an average Dutch dinner have to contain meat?’, ‘Where does this desire for meat and its overconsumption come from?’, and ‘Why do we eagerly consume pigs and cows, but balk at the idea of consuming veal or horse?’

Thijssen compares our not wanting to know that animals have suffered, to how addicts think. Eating meat is a pleasurable experience; it gives us a satisfying feeling. Hypoxanthine, inosinic acid and guanylic acid, chemicals that are present in meat, all stimulate the central nervous system.

Some meat is taboo, the meat of pets and vermin. Various species are considered pests. They are shot and killed for various reasons, but all have in common that many people do not consider them consumable. Though these unwanted animals are not killed for their meat, they are killed nonetheless. By not consuming these animals, we are creating even more waste, while the number of households depending on food banks keeps increasing.

20 pages, A4 format.

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