A Norwegian artist made a shocking announcement at his graduation exhibition - that he had eaten meat from his own hip after it was surgically removed.

Alexander Selvik Wengshoel, a student at Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art, suffered from a deformed hip since birth, spending years on crutches and in wheelchairs. He eventually received a metal replacement, and convinced the surgeons to let him film the operation and keep the hip bone.

The Local reports that the original plan was simply to boil the meat off the bone and use it in an art installation. However, when it was on the boil, he decided on a "whim" to have a taste:

"I took off a little piece and I thought, 'why not do it. It's not every day I will have a piece of human flesh which is mine and which it is possible to eat', so I had a little taste, and then I thought, 'that's really nice'."

Making an occasion of it, he whipped up some potato gratin and poured himself a glass of wine. He compares the taste to "wild sheep," describing it as "goaty."

For Wengshoel, it was an act of catharsis, turning the bone which had caused him so much pain into "something romantic."