TAXIDERMY IN ART & DESIGN

Watching Polly Morgan peel away the outer skin of a black bird is mesmerizing and disturbing at the same time. Morgan operates in a quick but precise way. Each step has been repeated many times before. Eventually, she pulls the skin back over some filling material, fashioning it with a new feather coat. The dead bird is whole again. At least that is what the deceiving appearance suggests.

     Artist Polly Morgan handles dead birds (and other animals) for a living; as does jewellery designer Tessa Metcalfe, who casts rings and other adornments from pigeon claws. Taxidermy can be a questionable business, but Morgan and Metcalfe state they only use animals which died from natural causes. Ethically, this is the only right way to approach the topic.

     My fascination for their work may stem from the human "bird envy" which Morgan mentions in the "What Do Artists Do All Day?" series. However, one cannot overlook the fact that in their skilled hands, the dead birds transform into something bigger, more beautiful, more meaningful. They are given a life after death.

     The bit I feel ambivalent about is when Morgan claims to use "a material like any other". Initially, I wanted to disagree. It felt disconcerting when she casually pulled her fridge drawers open, handling the animals like objects. But one also gets a sense of the psychological impact the work has had on her when she talks about vulnerability, fragility and being able to "visualize what is under the skin." For this not to intervene with the process, a routine helps. And a routine may generalize for the sake of art lending meaning to life.