To create “herd” we searched the site for detritus of the past and found rusted metal hooks used to move cow carcasses. Along with other found materials we created a “herd” of horned beasts standing on a scarlet ground. Surrounding the herd was a transparent wall of plastic, which was also used to wrap trays of “meat” – drawings of cows portioned into cuts of meat – much as the Mattatoio is portioned out into divided and uncommunicating areas each “wrapped” in their own concerns.

At the same time we could not avoid using the work to explore issues of industrial food production. Recent studies show that a big quantity of UK children do not understand that the meat they eat comes from an animal. The open presence of a place such as the old Mattatoio is rare in Western cities now. The wrapped drawings in “herd” insist on recalling the traditional primeval relationship between the food and the act of killing/sacrifice, affirming that real life does not come shrink wrapped beyond recognition but is all an integrated, complex, sometimes messy and unified whole.