Kitty Taylor

Introduction to Taxidermic Collections:

Taxidermic collections grew to popularity within the Victorian period due to several factors involving advances in science, imperial attitudes, and distribution of ‘colonial trophies’ in museums and personal collections. There are individual nuances: political, social, and environmental, of each of these forms of rising taxidermy during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Enormous quantities of animal skins were being sent back to Europe from Africa, Asia, and the New World by naturalist-explorers (Patchett 2017), and thus, taxidermy techniques were developed by Frenchmen in order to preserve and maintain permanent study collections. Museum taxidermy evolved to include ‘diorama’ displays towards the end of the nineteenth century, and much of the study on the work of taxidermy in museums looks at these diorama displays and the colonial legacies they hold, and whether they have a place within museums in the twenty-first century. Gallais (2022) said that to consider the taxidermied animal body is, within the museum context, “to consider the legacies of colonial worldviews, fabricated notions of species hierarchy, the fetishization of nature, and contemporary anxieties about the environment and climate” (Gallais 2022, 3). It is clear to me (as an enjoyer of taxidermy and not an expert) that the interdisciplinary world of taxidermy is complex, rich, and bleeds into wider debates on the socio-educational place of natural history collections in science and society as a whole (Sanders & Hohenstein 2015). 

Taxidermy Collections and Research:

Within the realm of museum collections, taxidermy has become vulnerable during periods of economic austerity and changes in cultural consciousness surrounding Eurocentric views of colonial enterprise (Gallais 2022, Sanders & Hohenstein 2015). Originally (other than the use of personal collections), taxidermied animal bodies in museums were seen as a ‘teaching tool’, which has been outdated by digital, modern techniques such as photography and videography. Taxidermy in museum spaces can be explored from several avenues; political and cultural questions surrounding museum funding and research bodies can be taken into account, with discourses stemming to the colonial legacy of these collections and how these may be explained and communicated into public displays. Sanders & Hohenstein (2015) were concerned with taxidermy collections’ potential as research spaces for understanding the impact of parental communication on children’s understandings of life and death, and furthermore how research into this area can form interdisciplinary relationships between curators and academics to contribute to the wider debate (Sanders & Hohenstein 2015, 251). They concluded that overall, the pedagogical potential of taxidermy collections and the impact of parental communication about children’s understandings of death are both under-researched. By combining the ‘visual appeal of the animal itself’ and ‘the intimate experience of encountering a long-dead animal face to face’, to encourage everyday conversations about the physical and natural world, cognitive understanding in children can be improved, as well as scientific learning (Sanders & Hohenstein 2015). 

In addition to research on the socio-educational benefit to taxidermy collections place in museum spaces, academic work on the political, historical and cultural questions surrounding the practice is prevalent. Rachel Poliquin (2008, 2012) wrote of the colonial, contemporary and philosophical connections that can be taken from viewing a display of taxidermy. Referring to a project in which taxidermied polar bears were photographed within a ‘home setting’ in a project in Bristol, England, she described how each of the polar bears came to be; previously shot, euthanised, well-travelled or simply dying because of old age, but all still ‘aliens’ to Great Britain, and not native creatures (Poliquin 2012). She argued that this raised questions surrounding past collecting practices, colonial expeditions, the physical presence of a dead animal, and representing contemporary anxieties surrounding global warming (Poliquin 2008). Humans are “story-telling organisms who individually and socially lead storied lives” (Barker 2007, Sanders & Hohenstein 2015), and within diorama taxidermy displays, stories are told through the animal bodies and art surrounding them. In some respects, these animal bodies are seen as ‘souvenirs’ of a colonial past (Poliquin 2012). Viewing the animal bodies as artefacts or souvenirs, creates a different way of viewing displays as perhaps it does if the display is seen as entirely scientific, with no art or surrounding storyline. However, with all historical displays, is it possible to separate the history of an object/specimen from its original or natural meaning, or is the edifice of taxidermy too nuanced to divide? 

Colonial Legacies and Responsible Curation:

Cultural questions over the production, curation and information on taxidermy collections and displays in museums generates theoretical questions on the education surrounding colonial heritage of natural history museums and how these stories are best communicated. Gallais (2022) argues that “while some attempts have been made over the years to re-contextualize certain specimens within the collection through a more contemporary perspective of the natural world, there is a persistent nineteenth century aura that is difficult to ignore” (Gallais 2022, 7). It is hard to describe what Gallais may be referring to when he talks of this ‘aura’. Perhaps it is the ‘animal vs. object’ discourse, the known history of the practice that involves the known imperial attitudes of the Victorian imagination (Poliquin 2012), or the magnetism of the visualities of displays which provoke a sense of discomfort. Merle Patchett (2017) spoke of taxidermy displays’ ‘provocative presence’, and their new-found home in academia and an important resource for telling complex histories of human-animal relations (Patchett 2017, 1). In Poliquin’s “The matter and meaning of museum taxidermy” (2008), she relays back the writing of a sign in the Natural History Museum in London, which reads:

“The Museum is concerned about the conservation of animals in the natural world and no longer collects skins for taxidermy displays. The specimens in these displays are from the Museum’s historical collections – consequently some are faded or show other signs of their age. We feel it is more appropriate to rely on these collections for display, even though they may not fully reflect the natural appearance of the living animal.”

This sign speaks to the distancing that museums have taken from the idea of ‘killing and mounting’, to speak to new cultural sensitivities. Although this sign represents some discomfort in the understanding surrounding potential animal abuse and animal activism, it doesn’t represent the legacies of the historical collections, a nod to where the animals came from, or how the museum takes responsibility or understanding of this. 

Ultimately, concerning taxidermic artefact collections with discussions on their history or diorama format presents curators, researchers, and museum goers with ‘potentially unanswerable’ questions regarding how nature, cultures, and the animal objects become entangled within museum spaces (Gallais 2022). Returning to Sanders & Hohenstein (2015) investigation into children’s understandings of life and death through taxidermy, these same questions are integral to discussing colonial archives. Death is what makes taxidermy possible, ‘but it is not motivated by brutality’, as it ‘aims to preserve, as if immortally, and to perpetuate the wonderment of nature’s most beautiful forms’ (Poliquin 2012, 10). Although a beautiful and poignant way of describing the art, Donna Haraway would disagree. Haraway (1984) expressed that ‘to be seduced by the vision, is, in some sense, to be complicit with social relations of domination, of white, robust, wealthy, progressive American manhood over the effeminate, the uncivilised, the dark, and the animal’ (Haraway 1984, Poliquin 2008). Haraway’s argument and much of the literature that I have delved into, has appreciated or represented the ‘magnetism’ that comes with taxidermy dioramas. In line with this, I wanted to touch on the romanticisation I felt that was hidden (or not so hidden) within the texts that I have encountered. Of course, as discussed, the representation of taxidermy and all its facets are nuanced and as somebody that has an amateur interest in the practice, I can’t say I am not enamoured by it in the same way some of the scholars are. However, I do find the use of language such as ‘seduced’ (Gallais 2022, 17; Haraway 1984), ‘wonderment’ (Poliquin 2012), ‘enchanting’ (Gallais 2022), and ‘eccentric’ (Poliquin 2008), to further alienate and distance the practice from the natural and ecological, and presents it as a fantastical story or practice of the past. 

The Embodied Practice of Taxidermy:

Merle Patchett has conducted a series of research papers on the historical geography of craftwork, to build a gap in the knowledge about geographical reflections on embodied practices. Of course, it would be futile of me to discuss the socio-politics and spatialisation of taxidermy, without addressing the physical practice of the art itself. Patchett and Pacault (2018), explore the site of avian bodies (feathers) in a couture fashion house in Paris, and explored the ways in which photography and storying can be used to portray embodied practices within historic workshops. Through this paper, I was introduced to Patchett’s 2017 paper “Taxidermy workshops: differently figuring the working of bodies and bodies at work in the past”, in which Patchett applies more-than-representational and more-than-human theory to visual analysis of paintings, posters and floorplans in the workshops of taxidermists. She claims that through the visits to the workshops, it enables us to witness the ‘sensuous yet contentious human-animal relations involved in the crafts of taxidermy (including the mass slaughter of animals), but also the precarious place of craftwork in the practice of science and the wider economy’ (Patchett 2017). This is a similar sentiment to that of exploring the museum relations to taxidermy collections through the papers discussed above. 

Considering the embodied practice of taxidermy, its colonial legacies and relationship to the development of science/ecology collections, and the discourses surrounding a contemporary place for taxidermy collections in museum spaces, what can be said for the journey and politics of the animals themselves? Much of the research in academia focuses on the finished product of the taxidermy animal, in its final form, behind glass, or in a diorama. If you take a moment to really ponder the visual image of a taxidermy animal in front of you, the animal bodies can evoke questions surrounding the journey from life to death. Thinking about the journey from life to behind glass, can lead researchers and curators to questions and answers about representations of colonial legacies and colonial aftermath, and the individual histories behind specimens. Poliquin (2012) spoke about some of the individual lives of the polar bears in the Bristol collection, from cause of death to zoo living, and their travels as deceased and taxidermy objects. This again, circles back to discussions of storying, whether ‘cultural, intellectual, emotional or aesthetic’ (Poliquin 2012, 8). The stories to be told about the ‘animal or object’ (Gallais 2022, 3), as Cameron (2012) states, are fundamentally implicated in the production of cultural, economic, political and social power as they have a geographic engagement with theories of discourse, power, and knowledge (Cameron 2012, 573). She argues that the use of the ‘story’, has become an object of knowledge and a mode of production among cultural, historical, political-economic and feminist scholars. I believe it is without a doubt crucial to identify the use of storying and its implications or influence on research within the field of taxidermy in museum spaces. Historical geographies relies on an abundance of storytelling, within academic papers, through archival texts and assumptive analysis through paintings and images. 

Conclusions:

Taxidermy collections are a wonderful piece of early to early-modern history, offering a wide selection of debates surrounding colonial human-animal relations and colonial legacies, museum archival collections and the politics of curation, as well as cultural and socio-educational questions surrounding life, death, and science. Through this brief (and surface level) exploration of taxidermy in museum spaces, I have come to ask myself whether the study of taxidermy has uncovered these socio-political debates, or are these debates imposed onto the objects? It is only open-minded to then ask whether the origin of the debates even matter, considering the historical and geographic value of the research. Yet, I believe that all contextual and historical relevance to an object, debate or phenomenon should be adequately researched and discussed when producing such work. The overall conclusion of my exploration is that discussions surrounding taxidermy, raises critical perspectives on how to conduct historical and archival research, as well as emerging in contemporary geographical debates on creative-led research and interdisciplinary studies such as Sanders & Hohenstein (2015), regarding the relevance of taxidermy in childhood development and museum-based learning. The physical embodiment of multiple historical, cultural, political, and ultimately fascinating stories that can be held within a taxidermy animal is what is most difficult to convey over writing on a page; but with emerging techniques, theory, and understandings within cultural and historical geographies, there is room for powerful, rich, and informative research surrounding the nuances of taxidermy animals. 

Bibliography

Cameron, E. (2012) “New geographies of story and storytelling”, Progress in Human Geography, 36:5 pp. 563-696

Gallais, J. L. (2022) “Animal Bodies in the Museum: Acts of Artmaking, Collective Knowledge, and Complex Conversation Around Museum Taxidermy”, Canadian Review of Art Education, 49:1 

Haraway, D. (1984–5) “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-193”’, Social Text, 11, 20-64.

Patchett, M. (2017) “Taxidermy”, In J. Urbanik (Ed.), Humans and animals: a geography of coexistence

Patchett, M. (2017) “Taxidermy workshops: differently figuring the working of bodies and bodies at work in the past”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 42:3 pp. 390-404

Patchett, M. & Pacault, M. (2018) “The last plumassier: storying dead birds, gender and Paraffection at Maison Lemarié”, cultural geographies, 25:1 pp. 123-134

Poliquin, R. (2008) “The matter and meaning of museum taxidermy”, Museum & Society, 6:2 pp. 123-134

Poliquin, R. (2012) “The Breathless Zoo” in Animalibus: Of Animals and Cultures, 1 pp. 1-11. ISBN: 9780271059617

Sanders, D. & Hohenstein, J. (2015) “Death on Display:” Reflections on Taxidermy and Children’s Understanding of Life and Death, Curator: The Museum Journal, 58:3 pp. 251-262