Whimsy Taxidermy

There's a subculture of taxidermists that dress their specimens in cute animal costumes and then sell them to people. I had no idea they existed. Something so niche shouldn't bother me but it does.

The idea of the abject, by Julia Kristeva, has always fascinated the way I interpret creative morbidity. Much of Kristeva's work explores the extraction of subjectivity into objectivity to what she deems as the most abject — the corpse. Using that framework to understand taxidermy as a practice is compelling.

Going into a museum and seeing these creatures is educational. You see animals you might never see up close in a way that doesn't impose on living creatures. Taxonomically arranged, you can sense the diversity of lifeforms that creatures can inhabit. The pristine specimen is an example of the clean and unclean. Kristevans could interpret this as giving the animal a new kind of subjectivity while it also being rendered as inanimate object to be observed.

With how ubiquitous Sylvanian Families and other anthropomorphic toys have been, initially running across taxidermy animals in dress up didn't faze me. I thought they were toys. The realisation they were dead animals stuffed and sold as wacky quaint oddities was disturbing. Researching more about the process, I was not convinced that “ethically-sourced roadkill” could have allowed me to ignore the uncanny valley.

Grotesque taxidermy was pioneered by Hermann Ploucquet and Walter Potter in the Victorian Era. Much of their work utilised animals in dioramas, putting them in roles like a children’s storybook. It's aptly grotesque in how consumption for spectacle precludes preservation of life. The artists and elite caring more about their collections and how their acquired specimens amused their guests.

The commodification of the natural world cannot be ignored as hunting decimated Britain's native wildlife populations. It was only until recent interventions with rewilding of foxes and beavers, that a sense of equilibrium has been restored.

Modern day attitudes towards conservationism has principled how consumers engage in anything from fur coats, makeup brushes and even taxidermy. Is it ethical consumption if the taxidermied animal died of the unnatural cause of being hit by a car? What if it's put in a frilly dress? 

I do find a layer of the hypocritical in myself. There is this artist that arranges real animal bones into flowers and bouquets that I follow. What constitutes the ethically grotesque? Maybe that we don't obscure the circumstances of life and death. 

The bone flower doesn't hide life and death — it recontextualises how we can find mutual beauty in both. Specimens in a museum can educate the public about the ecological importance of plants and wildlife. Pelts and traditional clothing, from Indigenous peoples, can teach us about survival and perseverance of marginalised cultures. 

Upcycle this baby doll body with me.

I have just the perfect decapitated head for this piece!

What I find strange is the intersections of whimsy taxidermy and its questionable ethos in aestheticising humanity onto a carcass. This costumed subjectivity transplants anthropocentric artifice onto decor. Imprinting our image onto real animals is performing an act of possession even after their death.