For the final meeting in the series convened by Antony Hudek, Curator and Deputy Director of Raven Row, London-based artist Laura White will give a talk about her practice followed by a workshop.

The day will start at 10.30 at Raven Row, with a presentation/discussion with Laura White.

After a lunch break we will gather at MEAT in Stoke Newington at 2pm for the workshop itself.

What it means to handle stuff – auto-pedagogy – a course in butchery.

Laura’s practice is an exploration and negotiation of everyday objects and matter, exploring things as material stuff and anthropological signifiers, selecting and manipulating things that reveal the human condition, such as its capabilities and vulnerabilities, value systems affected by consumerism and material status, and object entanglements and dependencies.
Research is an integral part of Laura’s practice, where she continually explores what it means to handle/come up against stuff, material and objects, thinking about how we use our hands, how a skill is acquired, the relationship between materials, hand and cognition, and the rich experience of understanding through direct hands on engagement. She has been doing this through a number of different skill-based courses such as butchery, fish knife skills, sushi making, baking, bread making, clay pot throwing and brick laying.

Laura would like to share with the workshop participants her next experience to explore what it means to handle chicken and pork at a professional butcher. She has devised with the head butcher a course titled ‘MEAT the bird and sausage Combo’, where participants will learn how to fillet chickens and make pork sausages.

This activity will focus on particular butchery skills, thinking about how the hands work in relation to the material (meat) and how through direct touch we learn about the object/material in front of us, its material properties and behaviour, such as its weight, strength and texture. It is also interesting to think about the context and environment in which the activity is taking place (the butcher’s shop) the social exchange between skilled professionals and participants, and the food industry which this activity is servicing.