Carnivorous or not, if you're in Durban you ought to check out Michelle Luffingham's red, fatty photographs of carcasses, showing at artSPACE from Saturday until September 8.Entitled Ingelosi ye Nyama - Angels of Meat, Luffingham's exhibition documents and celebrates the work of the ''meat conductors" responsible for moving heavy animal carcasses from abattoir to butchery."The physical strength needed to lift an entire carcass - be it a baconer (65-85kg), a beef forequarter (50-60kg) or hindquarter (50-60kg) - is huge," Luffingham says."These men and women may lift their own body weight and more, in fast succession, over two or three hours. It requires a certain type of stamina and spirit. Words like shova (push), phakamisa (lift), bamba (hold) and twala (carry) abound." These meat conductors, in their white, blood-splattered overalls and gumboots, play a crucial part in getting your meat from slaughterhouse to steakhouse, but they are largely unrecognised, perceived merely as handlers.Luffingham - whose family has been in the meat industry for 80 years - spent several years photographing the meat conductors. She says that when she first called them ''the angels of meat" they smiled and a sense of pride flashed across their faces.There's something twistedly gorgeous about a carcass. Those reds and whites and greys. The splayed, arachnoid symmetry of the ribs. The off-yellow clots of fat. The naked spine of a trillion dead neural pathways. When I ask Luffingham, over the phone, whether she finds a carcass beautiful, my receiver turns very breathy."Oh ja, completely." she says. "When I worked in quality control [for the family business], the best part of my day was receiving the meat. I'd pick up fresh pork fillets and I wouldn't want to deliver them because they looked so beautiful."Apart from portraying the loveliness of skinless animal flesh, Luffingham also wants her exhibition to, temporarily at least, break down the disassociation or blitheness humans feel about the meat they receive on their plate, whether it be about how the meat got there and/or whether it's relatively pure."Meat in South Africa has recently lost credibility due to mass production, GMO [genetically modified organism] feed and antibiotics and hormones," Luffingham says."People need to see and know that there are huge standards of hygiene. Most abattoirs have an inspector on site. Also, the public often don't understand the value of certain modern agricultural practices, nor the pressures of an ever-increasing population and a decrease in agricultural land. But this is meat, this is how it comes to your plate."'Ingelosi ye Nyama - Angels of Meat' is on at artSPACE, Durban, until September 8. 031-312-0793..