The curtain rises: Elsa Casanova
The curtain rises and "an animal" appears, in the indefinite singular; as if from a worm to a bear, or a lion, all formed part of a homogeneous opposite radically distinct from "man". This exhibition is part of an eternally-ongoing investigation that takes taxidermy, hunting and the devices of representation of "nature" as a starting point for reflecting on the ways in which we imagine the "animal". Through what gazes do we frame, think and relate (or not) to that which is "natural" and "wild"?
A few months ago I read that nature documentaries tend to show scenes of male lions hunting in order to make the content more dramatic and appealing to audiences¹. However, lions spend most of the day sleeping and it is generally the females who do the hunting. Days later, I visited the workshop of a taxidermist, and standing before a half-mounted lion in an attack posture, I asked: why not represent the lion lying down, to offer a more faithful image of its usual behaviour? A long silence followed while the taxidermist thought about what to say.
The workshop was full of "animals" placed on artificial rocks and dark walnut wood supports. If you looked them in the eyes, it seemed as if they were they were about to run away. The eyes were nothing but two plastic balls. The scene reminded me of the dioramas in a museum, but as if someone had got confused about the coherence of the ecosystem. The animals, removed from their habitat, had been stripped of their skin, tusks and horns. «If the trophies pass certain standardisation thresholds, some of them win medals», the taxidermist told me, referring to the tusks and horns. The skin is placed over prefabricated polyurethane foam forms that reproduce standardised and idealised postures of the represented fauna.
In that hyperrealist theatre with motionless actors, I thought of the book Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, by Donna Haraway, in which she explains that the dioramas in natural history museums replicate traditional family models inscribed in a heteropatriarchal order. The male is presented as the dominant protective figure, the female appears in the background, and two offspring complete the scene. And, although these stagings seem "natural", they are visual fables that seek to present as "biological order" what is in fact a sociocultural construction. According to Haraway, dioramas are not devices where "nature" merely represents itself, but rather «maps of power that, in turn, threaten to govern the living»². I also thought of Jacques Derrida, who argues that every representation is always a betrayal, a betrayal masked beneath an appearance of scientific objectivity. I did not mention any of this to the taxidermist.
A few months ago I read that nature documentaries tend to show scenes of male lions hunting in order to make the content more dramatic and appealing to audiences¹. However, lions spend most of the day sleeping and it is generally the females who do the hunting. Days later, I visited the workshop of a taxidermist, and standing before a half-mounted lion in an attack posture, I asked: why not represent the lion lying down, to offer a more faithful image of its usual behaviour? A long silence followed while the taxidermist thought about what to say.
The workshop was full of "animals" placed on artificial rocks and dark walnut wood supports. If you looked them in the eyes, it seemed as if they were they were about to run away. The eyes were nothing but two plastic balls. The scene reminded me of the dioramas in a museum, but as if someone had got confused about the coherence of the ecosystem. The animals, removed from their habitat, had been stripped of their skin, tusks and horns. «If the trophies pass certain standardisation thresholds, some of them win medals», the taxidermist told me, referring to the tusks and horns. The skin is placed over prefabricated polyurethane foam forms that reproduce standardised and idealised postures of the represented fauna.
In that hyperrealist theatre with motionless actors, I thought of the book Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, by Donna Haraway, in which she explains that the dioramas in natural history museums replicate traditional family models inscribed in a heteropatriarchal order. The male is presented as the dominant protective figure, the female appears in the background, and two offspring complete the scene. And, although these stagings seem "natural", they are visual fables that seek to present as "biological order" what is in fact a sociocultural construction. According to Haraway, dioramas are not devices where "nature" merely represents itself, but rather «maps of power that, in turn, threaten to govern the living»². I also thought of Jacques Derrida, who argues that every representation is always a betrayal, a betrayal masked beneath an appearance of scientific objectivity. I did not mention any of this to the taxidermist.
¹ In the prologue to "Palmer, Chris. Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom (2011)", Jane Goodall asks: And how much artistic freedom should be granted to the writer of a nature documentary? Can we tolerate anthropomorphic interpretations of behaviour in order to win the sympathy of viewers or to provoke laughter?
² Haraway, Donna. Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden (1984).
³ Ortega y Gasset, José. Meditaciones sobre la caza (1942).