Human beings are omnivores. For 2.6 million years, their menu has included animals as well as plant-based foods. In Europe, it is the animal that is eaten the most, in Islam and Judaism, it is prohibited – no other animal is viewed with as much ambivalence as the pig. It represents luck and affluence, but nobody wants to be called a pig. Humans and pigs are physiologically alike and yet we put more distance between us than from any other animal. Even before the scandal at the German Tönnies-slaughterhouse, we all knew: Meat production is cruel and a significant contributing factor to the climate crisis. Food is a question of identity and causes arguments in families and workplace-cafeterias. Greenpeace demands that our meat consumption should be halved by 2050. But why has this consumption remained at a high level for decades, even though many people want change and our awareness of the connections between meat consumption and the climate crisis has drastically increased, especially among the younger generation?
In Miriam Tscholl’s PIGS, 30 audience members encounter 30 experts on the topic of pigs in a digital installation: butchers, agriculture politicians, climate activists, farmers, consumers and many more. In a process between digital infotainment and a democracy game, the spectators consider their ambivalent relationship with the pig both individually and as a group. And then, two analogue limelight hogs enter this moral institution. The actors relay kind regards from the god Dionysus, at whose frenetic parties animals were once torn into pieces and eaten.