Pig 05049

My favorite book in the current exhibit at my place of employment is this one:

by Christien Meindertsma, which indexes the myriad of products and processes a single pig can be used for- products ranging from ammunition, paint, glue, heart valves, brakes, chewing gum, to porcelain, cosmetics, and conditioner. There’s a great graphic in the beginning which diagrams the part of the pig each product comes from, and the book as a whole is organized around the various parts-bone, blood, meat, etc, with some satisfying die-cuts to mark each section. I love that it is about the uses of a specific pig, and not just pigs in general, and that the introduction talks about the traditional food uses of every part of the pig in Sicilian cooking, and how the global industrial approach to a pig takes that to an extreme you could never have imagined. But mostly I just love the replica of the ear tag on the spine that identified Christien’s particular pig.

You can see more of her work, and more images of the book here.