Museum of London’s Meat Market Move Drives PETA Push for Empathy Exhibition

Museum of London’s Meat Market Move Drives PETA Push for Empathy Exhibition

London – While Smithfield Market – a former open-air slaughterhouse and once the UK’s largest wholesale meat market – is transitioning into the new Museum of London, amid “Veganuary”, PETA sent a letter to museum director Sharon Ament to urge the attraction to include a PETA exhibition on empathy for animals. At the proposed exhibit, guests could learn about animals and honour the millions who were killed on site. If Ament agrees, the group has offered to donate copies of PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk’s book Animalkind to the pro-animal display.

In the letter, Newkirk writes, “I actually once hoisted myself, naked, onto a hook to hang alongside a line of pig carcasses at Smithfield Market to highlight that, just like humans, cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals are sentient beings with individual personalities, likes, and dislikes.”

Celebrating that the former slaughterhouse could transform into an educational space about animals and their abilities, she continues, “PETA’s empathy exhibition would help people understand that animals who are used for food suffer unnecessarily – and that vegan foods are humane, healthy, and environmentally friendly.”

Each of the millions of animals killed at Smithfield Market felt pain, had a family, and wanted to live in peace. While it’s too late to bring them back, each person who goes vegan can expect to spare nearly 200 animals every year daily suffering and a terrifying death. Going vegan also reduces one’s risk of developing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity; helps fight the climate catastrophe by reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and even helps prevent future pandemics.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), or Instagram.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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