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Exhibition

"Like lighting a cigarette"

Sascha Landshoff kills animals. For art’s sake. So he was bound to attract attention. Not every art project has the police, Dutch animal welfare services, Wakker Dier (a Dutch animal welfare organisation) and the Partij voor de Dieren (a Dutch political party with an animal-rights focus) at their doorsteps all in one day, only to then be discussed by the artist on De Wereld Draait Door (a Dutch chat show). Cook, artist and entrepreneur Sascha Landshoff (27) managed to pull all this off with his art project De Tostifabriek (The Grilled Sandwich Factory). “Meat, no!" correspondent Meike and “Meat, yes!" correspondent Peter thought that this called for a deeper dive. They interviewed Sascha leading up to the group exhibition First Course in SIGN.

By: Rosa Timmer
27 May 2015

THREE ANIMALS

This wasn’t like swatting a fly and then getting to eat an elephant. Sascha single-handedly killed three animals, one from each of the following categories: meat, fish and poultry. Despite the fact that the artist reported having nightmares for several weeks before killing the lamb, the act itself surprisingly did not affect him much. This was what Sascha found most frightening: "The idea of killing was really horrible, but doing it was like lighting a cigarette." 

CHILD’S PLAY

So slaughtering an animal was like child’s play. But the million-dollar question remains: Is introducing a meat licence like this feasible in practice?

Sascha: "In principle, I don't think it's feasible, but that's not what I'm aiming for either. I want to draw people's attention to something. In this case that those who eat meat are indirectly involved in the slaughter of animals. I'm not trying to get people to eat less meat. I myself still eat as much meat as I used to.”

Correspondent Peter breathes a sigh of relief. Killing a lamb may be like smoking a cigarette, but Peter prefers to keep his lungs — and his hands — clean. And Meike, a vegetarian for life, is happy with all the attention the meat industry is getting, nuanced as it may be.

AND WHAT DO WE THINK OF IT?

Simply put, Sascha is not as much of an activist as all the media coverage would have you believe. His intention is more to test himself (a self-proclaimed “urban wimp”), in turn creating greater awareness amongst himself and his contemporaries. Sascha: "I think it's very dangerous to view something as completely separate from its context.”  According to Sascha, that is a good reason to shorten the distance between what you consume and the origin of the product.

Is just a meat licence enough, though? Shouldn't there also be something like a soybean licence? Should you have to raze a patch of unspoilt forest before you can eat soy? The “Meat, yes!" camp and the “Meat, no!" camp agree. And according to Sascha, we could also stand to test each other a bit more. So it’s time to level the playing field from now on!

Text: Peter Dicke and Meike Leurs // Image: Ruben Visscher // More on Sascha Landshoff:

http://www.saschalandshoff.com/projects/meatlicense.html
http://dewerelddraaitdoor.vara.nl/media/242631