How the Sausage Gets Made

In Pagan circles, pigs are considered “lunar” animals; like the moon, they are capable of transformation. On the island of Mallorca, some families still perform these transformations via matances, an annual gathering where a pig is slaughtered and preserved as sobrassada sausage. Though this practice is less common than it once was, one can still find whole sections of modern Mallorquin grocery stores dedicated to cured pork, complete with an employee carving tiny slices of jamon iberico by hand.

My hometown of Chicago is famous for a more mechanized approach to meat production; once known as “hog butcher to the world”, the city began industrializing its meatpacking as far back as 1865. This impersonal but highly efficient method made meat accessible to far more people, even as it allowed those consumers to distance themselves from the corporeal nature of animal butchery. Indeed, American foods like the hot dog are so fundamentally processed that they sometimes lose all connection to their biological origin.

How the Sausage Gets Made invites the viewer to share a communal meal and consider the concept of transformation, both in terms of the food they eat and the culture that surrounds it. In the context of a global turn towards right-wing politics, simply eating together can be a revolutionary act. Through the medium of sculpture and video, the piece offers a new symbolic vocabulary via cross-cultural mashup, blending digital forms with costumes inspired by traditional festival masks.

This artwork was created over a four month period during my second artist residency at ADEMA University in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. I am particularly indebted to Diego, Amparo, Raquel, Guillem, Rosa, Jose, Cisco, Dan, Victor, Marcos, Oscar, Mar, Toni, Euge, Paula, Ana Maria, Marta, Claudia, and Cati, who taught me so much about Mallorquin culture and helped me realize my largest research project to date.

Press for How the Sausage Gets Made: mallorcadiario.com, fibwidiario.com, dbalears.cat