BioGeoGraphies

a series of interventions in the ‘after-lives’ of zoological specimens

Blue Antelope

Scotch Argus

Cross-bills

Disposition

Swallow

The Hunterian Zoology Collections have provided various routes to investigate lives lived, things being done, and what is left behind. Starting with something personallly significant, “BioGeoGraphies” have become a kind biographical work, drawing out specific environmental histories. Artworks crystallize from seeking different perspectives and ways of knowing.

This work draws on activities and concerns within geography and biology, and has parallels with certain strands of cultural historical geography: ‘spaces of a life’ are of interest and personhood is recast as a constellation of events and encounters. With this approach, human and animal lives lose neat beginnings and endings. While multifaceted accounts of partial, dispersed and overlooked remains may disappoint some – ‘vexed biographies’, which tolerate untidy endings and complexity, can also offer points of re-connection.

This work also, obliquely, reflects on how natural history presents its subjects and on the contemporary value of these collections. With taxidermy, my dismayed fascination with trophy taxidermy’s historical role in Scotland, and its current fashionable revival, has been countered by learning about excellent and ethical practice in present-day museums.

Distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ seems beside the point when the starting point is that relationships between humans and non-human worlds are inextricably entwined. Such a viewpoint lets animals and objects gain agency and a human investigator is obliged to develop an eye for how we collectively shape – and are shaped by – non-human existences.

These relationships are sharply focused by this era of extinction, caused as it is by humans.