Project summary
Re:Pig is an interdisciplinary research project that connects art practice and food system-focused social science research to intervene with and unsettle the prevailing narratives around the Western industrialised food system. The main focus thus far has been industrial pork farming in the UK and the wider socio-political conditions that structure pig lives.
Re:Pig seeks to re-evaluate pre-conceived ideas around non-human animal agency and resistance. It aims to make the normally obscured relations of power underpinning the industrial meat complex more visible. Re:Pig contemplates alternative foodscapes, highlighting the interconnectedness of all living (and non-living) beings. It imaginines alternative ways of human/non-human relating that go beyond subjugation and exploitation.
Project team
- Dr Ekaterina Gladkova (Assistant Professor in sociology) – project lead and lead author
- Naho Matsuda (Senior Research Fellow in design) – project collaborator
Project highlights
Since early 2022, we:
- created an extensive illustrated map of the different scales of impacts of industrial pig farming on aquatic, air and soil ecosystems and their biodiversity, as well as human communities – both those residing in close vicinity to industrial pork farms and those not directly impacted by the practice.
- made 30 illustrated design proposals that playfully deconstruct the various issues that appear within industrial pig farming. These are themed around Pig Power, Play, Empathy, Senses, and Interspecies Relations. Some examples include Pig Protest, Wild Boar Mentorship Scheme, Slurry Fountain, Pig Theme Park, Tasting Menus for Pigs, Pig Radio, Security Protocols for Traveling Pigs, Pig Translator, Pigs Degrees of Separation game.
- became one of three large-scale art commissions as part of their Bad Taste campaign. Bad Taste campaign selected projects that sit at the intersection of art and activism and take place at sites of political and corporate structural power. For that, we created SOW.
SOW is a geospatial augmented reality (AR) public art intervention. It takes form of a giant female pig that can be visible in the locations that are part of the UK’s industrial pork supply chain via the SOW AR app.SOW appears on top of the Barclays bank headquarters in Canary Wharf, on the rooftops of Tesco on Bold Street in Liverpool and Tesco on Morning Lane in London. The pig towers over the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in Westminster, she appears in front of the meat processor Danish Crown factory in Rochdale and is on top of the Cargill Tower in the Liverpool Docks. As part of the project, we also mapped the industrial pork supply chain in the UK. The infographic we created can be seen on the project website with supporting information.
We have also:
- conducted two walking workshops with the general public and academic audiences based on the SOW project in June 2024 titled ‘SOW in the City’. The first workshop was conducted as part of the London Festival of Architecture, the second one was a ‘fieldtrip’ for the Royal Geographical Society Animal Geography Working Group’s Multispecies Methods Workshop. During the workshops, we visited the DEFRA and Canary Wharf SOW sites, and each participant was given a booklet with the project information and six creative prompts to engage with SOW through.
- produced Re:Pig zine. The zine was commissioned by the Science Gallery London as part of their season ‘Vital Signs: Another World is Possible’. This exhibition ran from November 2024 to May 2025.
Re:Pig is an invitation to reflect on the lives of industrially farmed pigs and showcases our ongoing work. It includes a collection of creative proposals, public art interventions and guest essays from King’s College London researchers, artists and activists. As part of the Gallery’s Friday Lates, Ekaterina conducted a zine-making, mapping and postcard creating workshop in April 2025.
Project image gallery
Partners and Sponsors
Project classification
Re:Pig is a Social Sciences project. It belongs to the following research clusters:
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