Dead things

Some samples from our tour of the science building yesterday.

A question was raised by the philosophy professor (outside my presence) about the ethics of using/exploiting these animals' bodies. "You wouldn't do that with human bodies," she was reported to counter.

Actually, I would. There are human bones I have to talk with a different professor about photographing.

But it isn't about exploitation. I hope my work is very obvious about how I feel about being exploitative of my subjects.

If anything, I feel too empathetic of the creatures. If an animal dies in the wild, it rots and disappears. But if it is captured, found, or killed to create a display creature like these, in exchange for a little bit of humiliation, it will long outlast it's projected earthly presence. In other words, its mortality is extended beyond the normal lifetime of its body. Not indefinitely. Looking at some of these, we see time will still take its toll.

I read about a museum that burned all its old taxidermy. I thought that was tragic. A waste of the animal and a waste of the artistry of the preparer. I don't know if I think of them as art, but there is a distinct skill that is present or not in these remains.

Somehow, I was most drawn to the over-presented animals--like the ones with their own, portable dioramas--and the underpresented ones--like the skins stuffed with cotton and mounted on a stick. The later have this cotton stare, but a pose like they are sleeping or dead. They are beautiful and sad at the same time.