A parliament of monsters: the animal body as art and entertainment

• Main Author: McRae, Rod
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: UNSW, Sydney 2014
• Subjects: Conservation; Taxidermy; Sculpture; Wunderkammer; Sculpture by the Sea; Stewardship; Mounted Animals; Baboon; McRae; Rod; Bone Free; Climate Change; Animal; Hunting; Cabinet of Wonders; Polar Bear; Zebra; Lion; Fox; Penguin; polar bear
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/53498; https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/bitstreams/a549be7e-0a4a-4282-9b70-ac230bd1d1a7/download; https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/16814

My paper explores the journey humans and animals have made together since antiquity, a torrid history of exploitation and interdependence and how this journey informs the way we reference the Animal Body in art and entertainment today. From amphitheatre to animatronics, the role of the animal, its dignity, its body politic, its rights and its representations form the basis of my research and its application to my sculptural and installation work. My question is; in these times of climate change fatigue - can I create and exhibit artworks using the medium of taxidermy that will talk to a broad audience and add to the general conservation debate? The animal body like the human body is itself, unique, authentic and descriptive, it engages the viewer because of its ‘authenticity’. Demanding empathy, suggesting a lived history in a real place and time, it is neither replica or simulacra but it speaks its own truths, each Animal Body, and its parts thereof, represents ostensibly its own natural once ‘lived’ entity. Given the level of fatigue in and around the climate change debate exacerbated by big industry, the conservative press and short term thinking politicians, it would seem timely to explore new ways to engage the public in conservation issues more generally and climate stress in particular. I argue that conventional methods in producing sculpture, specifically stone, wood, resin, plaster, clay or steel cannot and do not provoke the same emotional response in the viewer as the use of the animals own skin. I propose that it is because of the authenticity of taxidermy, and the empathy it garners in the viewer, that puts this medium in a unique position to recharge the conservation and climate change conversation.