Artistry of Butchery
The Artistry of Butchery is an exhibition for the Museum of London, which is currently evicting the people we have taken as our subjects - the Smithfield Butchers.
Year: 2023
Design: Adonis Christodolou, Anne-Marie George, Jinhak Lee, Rosalie Valentiny, Vishal Mehta.
Discipline: Human Centred Design, Exhibition Design, Education
My contributions include Field research, Interviews, EXP prototyping, design writing, exhibition design, video editing & graphic design
Project designed as part of MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering | Royal College of Art & Imperial College London
Context: Smithfield Market has been on site for 1000 years and is known for its Victorian market buildings. A lasting remnant of the past, but not for long. The market will move to Barking, replaced by the Museum of London. With the new site looking to automate its processes, the closure will mark the disappearance of one of the last meat markets operating exclusively through manual labour.
Outcome: This Artistry of Butchery is a 2030 exhibit, designed for the future site of the Museum of London, which will invite spectators to witness and experience the work that happened behind the plastic curtains and that ensured Londoners’ mouths were fed for generations. Future generations will be nourished with the cultural and technical insights of this craft.
Process: Through field research, immersion, observations and interviews, we explored the market in as much depth and breadth as possible. To convert our research into probes, we prototype a lot and fast, i.e. “Thinking through making”. From this, we designed the Artistry of Butchery, focusing on visibilising the lived experiences of the workers of Smithfield instead of the noise, activism and controversy that surrounds the meat industry.
This project was a response to the brief: “London: An Invisible City”.
We were assigned Smithfield Market, with the mission to unveil its hidden treasures and subtle nuances, rendering the invisible visible using the rich cultural, historical, and sociopolitical layers of London as our canvas.