Category: PIG05049

February 13, 2020

Video: how pig parts make the world turn.

We love the work of Dutch artist Christien Meindertsma, and have drawn on her work to explain what the ‘follow the thing’ approach is all about, and how to do it well on our Classroom Resources page. We were reminded of her work today in a seminar in the Exeter Geography series by Ray Chan called “Capitalist pigs: politics of meat production and animal diseases in China.” We’re posting her 2010 TED talk today because it’s awesome. Enjoy!

I think that, in order to take better care of what’s behind our products — so, the livestock, the crops, the plants, the non-renewable materials, but also the people that produce these products — the first step would actually be to know that they are there.
Christian Meindertsma 2010 | TED Talk

November 29, 2015

A pig in a hundred pieces: Christien Meindertsma

If you have been looking for a go-to explanation of the ‘follow the thing’ approach to material culture studies, this is your lucky post. Here artist and designer Christien Meindertsma – author of PIG05049 – explains it beautifully.

If you’re curious about PIG05049, we posted her TED talk on it here. She explains more in this video, too.

October 23, 2015

Coming soon to followthethings.com

Most followthethings.com’s pages begin their lives as group research work in a University of Exeter module called Geographies of material culture. We show the students a selection of followthethings,com ‘compilation’ pages, and ask them to produce pages just like these for a new set of provocative sources.

They’re called ‘compilation’ pages because they are compilations of quotations taken from online discussions of a film, art work, etc. that are arranged on the page to resemble a lively conversation about that film, art work, etc.: how it’s been described, how and why it was made, what discussion it provoked and what impacts it had. There are eight groups of students working on eight new pages, right now. Their draft followthethings.com pages will be published as wordpress blogs. Here’s what you have to look forward to…