Christien Meindertsma

I followed this one pig with number '05049,' all the way up until the end and to what products it's made of. And in these years, I met all kinds people like, for instance, farmers and butchers, which seems logical. But I also met aluminum mold makers, ammunition producers and all kinds of people.

I discovered that bone china was a British invention, which had been developed by a pottery sited next to a slaughterhouse - 'bone' china, of course, contains bones, though we are inclined to forget that.

I bought a year's production of flax from a single field owned by a Dutch producer. That's 10,000 kilograms of flax, enough to enable industrial level production. Now, I'm weaving it into tablecloths, tea towels, and other items at the Textile Museum in Tilburg. I'm producing hundreds of grown-up products!

I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.