i love taxidermy. i originally began this post with an apologetic sentence excusing this infatuation, but upon second thought i decided to retract it; enough apologies for my eccentricities. granted the concept is absolutely terrible, i get it. but with this horror comes an undeniable intrigue. i recall sitting in my grandmother's living room for hours when i was a child, staring at the taxidermied deer head that hung over her mantle. i was endlessly distracted from my television shows, from the snack i was consuming, from whatever business i needed to conduct in that room. all because of those eyes, glassy and so unbearably pitiful, glaring at me always. this preoccupation reached all-time intensity when my uncle went ahead and hung his gold bocce ball medals around the deer's neck (yes, bocce ball). from that point forward i couldn't help but feel as though i'd done something wrong.


yesterday we paid a visit to porto's museum of natural history. there was absolutely no one working or monitoring anything. if i wanted to ride the mountain lion, i most certainly could have. the place smelled of moth balls and formaldehyde and feces. literally the entire exhibit was of taxidermied animals with little to no explanations, and barely legible tags. with each phase of this experience, the exhibits became increasing less and less organized and exceeding more chaotic. it began with a few animals: a sloth, koala, a couple of macaws. OK. then, two giant walls of insects. next, a wall of monkeys, and an entire room of birds. the next room was slightly more cluttered: wolves, deer, more birds. the next room was locked, but looked promising. we left for five minutes and when we returned, a field trip group of middle schoolers seemed to have barbarically broken through the door, and were well on their way to posing for camera phone shots beside their dead animal of choice. the room was packed and so poorly planned that one needed to weave in and out of of a giant whale skeleton, and island cases of taxidermied seals and alligators to view the wall displays. the wall displays, however, were no disappointment. to see zebra, twenty species of rodents, various types of jungle cat, and giant polar bears all existing in harmony was a real treat. what a lovely little ghost zoo, sheesh. not to get too animal whisperer like here, but let's just say the mood of the room was...well...heavy.

afterward, we snuck into the attic because we could. the staircase up was completely drenched in bird shit and the half of the room was missing roof. the other half contained the amount and variety of animals shown in the entire exhibit, but all out in the open, piled on top of one another, crammed into unlocked cases, onto broken shelving units, and strewn about on the floor. though i was shitting twelve bricks and half expected an attack of zombie animals, this was maybe the most incredible thing i have ever seen. it took a lot of will power not to snatch up a furry friend of my own; i could use the company in my new barren apartment.

these images are by a british artist named angela singer. she is an animal rights activist and creates most of her pieces by recylcing old hunting taxidermy. her art is a shockingly beautiful commentary on the closeness between humans and the animal world.