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Foster W. Krupp and His Dead Petz
145 Plays3 years ago
In this ARTloween episode we are talking about taxidermy with emerging museum student and researcher Foster W. Krupp! We discusses how taxidermy is understood through a museum studies lens and their “creep factor.”
For all of Artpop Talk's resources, click HERE.
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Transcript
Introduction to Taxidermy with Foster W. Krupp
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome to Art Pop Talk. I'm Bianca. And I'm Gianna. Alexa, play Twinkle Song from Miley and Her Dead Pets. What does it mean? What does it mean? No!
00:00:17
Speaker
Well, today, we'll tell you what it means. It means that we are talking all about taxidermy? A complex act of animal preservation used for art, trophies, history, and natural science.
Humor, Instagram, and Museum Trauma
00:00:30
Speaker
Continuing our art looine series, we are joined by Foster W. Krupp, a museum studies major, to talk about this history, but also the creep factor that taxidermy carries in its many different environments.
00:00:44
Speaker
This episode is gonna get you fucking fucked up. So that's art pop talk about taxidermy. Hey guys, hey Bianca. Yo yo yo. Yo yo yo. So I need everyone to know, or at least I hope that some of the art pop tarts know that Fucking Fucked Up is a song on Miley's album. And I know you love it when I explain my jokes, but that's as witty as I could try to be writing this intro.
00:01:14
Speaker
You know, it was good. I'm here for it. I want to get fucked up by some museum talk. Well, I was trying to like find different titles and I was going to be like, Karen, don't be sad. Let's art pop talk. Like, I don't know. And honestly, Bianca, I don't know if you notice this, but I stopped writing captions for my Instagram posts because truly, I'm just
00:01:40
Speaker
You know, I'm not a witty person.
Traumatic Taxidermy Experiences
00:01:42
Speaker
I would love to be a witty person, but I have to. I have to save my wittiness up for these intros now. Like I have no more wittiness to give to my own personal Instagram, which I really don't even like give a shit about these days anyway. So I've just stopped writing Instagram captions because I really want to like put the content where it's useful.
00:02:03
Speaker
Well, you're doing a good job because I feel like every time you post something for our pop talk, I'm like, oh, that's funny. Like I would have never fucking thought. I'm always just like, here is today's episode. Well, can I tell you what I was going to write for our caption today when I posted the resources? Well, because, you know, especially with today's
00:02:27
Speaker
content. Like, before we get into our discussion with Foster, I just need you all to know that taxidermy is such a large part of my museum trauma. Like I really have some like, I am really fucking fucked up because of taxidermy. Wait, that could be the title of episode. I am fucked up. I am not doing well.
00:02:54
Speaker
It really is true and so I was going to be like check out these images that Foster shared with us because I'm too scared to look up my own images but I I felt as though I wanted you guys to listen to that episode before I you know gave you a little taste my museum trauma
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's good. We can talk about that.
Art News: Chucky Franchise
00:03:14
Speaker
Actually, whenever we were talking with Foster, whenever we did the recording, afterwards, we were saying we may need to do like a call out and have you guys submit stories about your museum trauma because I feel like there's some good ones. Foster had good ones. Gianna, you have good ones. I have some, yeah, the dinosaur museum one. I'll never forget it.
00:03:36
Speaker
Do you want to tell them about the Dinosaur Museum one now? Or do we want to wait till after Art News? I feel like we should wait for the Museum Trauma episode. Like maybe I want to save it for the episode entirely. Save it all up. Yeah. So one episode of just Trauma. How is that different from any other episode we do? I suppose. Well, this one's very, this one is a little touchy for you. Yeah, this one is just...
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, I won't I guess if we're gonna do this episode, which it sounds like, you know, we should do. We'll take a poll later. I won't tell the whole story. But I'll just say, if any of the charts have been to Willow Rock, like, if you know what that is, in Oklahoma, in Oklahoma, it's a historical site here. And it fucking sucks.
00:04:27
Speaker
That's all I'm gonna say about that. If you're afraid of taxidermy, like Gianna is, don't go. Don't go. Bianca, I was also so pissed because mom came over to give me some furniture yesterday and she asked me what the episode was gonna be about and I said it was gonna be on taxidermy and she was like, oh, are you gonna be okay? And I said, no, I'm not gonna be okay.
00:04:55
Speaker
And we had this whole conversation where we had to go down memory lane.
Foster Krupp's Background and Passion
00:05:01
Speaker
And I was like, how did you not know that's the only thing Willow Rock has to offer? And she was like, well, I don't know. They have other things. I said, no, they don't. I do remember eating a hot dog there. She said they have a dog collection. They have an airplane collection. I said, oh, really? Do they? Because all I remember is the big, giant elephant head on the wall.
00:05:24
Speaker
Thank you. Actually that's all I remember too and the hot dog. I remember definitely eating a hot dog. I remember like a taxidermy bison that they turned into a trash can. Do you remember that? You would like like put the trash like it was like a section thing. It was like in its mouth and it would like take it away. Do you remember that? I'm like that's disgusting. So freakin don't go to Willow Rock.
00:05:50
Speaker
We're not advocating. We're not advocating. You're going to be okay. You know what? I'm not. Should we switch it up and get into art news a little bit? Give you a little breather. Yeah, we should. Sorry, guys. For today's art news.
00:06:13
Speaker
I thought it would be fun to piggyback off of our episode from last week and talk about the continuation of a beloved cult classic series, which is Chucky. So Chucky has come back with the same charm and from the original creator. Charm? Yeah, have you already? Same charm? I've never seen Chucky.
00:06:32
Speaker
I'll get into it a little bit. I've never seen like, I haven't seen a lot of the movies. I haven't seen Chucky all the way through, but it's like humorous and like very
History and Etymology of Taxidermy
00:06:42
Speaker
like witty and like Chucky's kind of like a beloved
00:06:46
Speaker
character. It's interesting. So the creator Don Mancini is part of this new series, which is taking form in this episodic format. So critics say that the series stays very true to the spirit of the movies, putting the focus on the young cast at its core while also making room for some familiar folks from Trekkie's past. Also including a detailed backstory this time of Charles Lee Ray,
00:07:12
Speaker
as Chucky was known before he used black magic to transfer his dying spirit into a doll. So one of the reasons Chucky is a cult classic is because of the continuation of this character over the course of different movies and the catch factor of the murderous doll who is humorous, manipulative, but has likeable and dislikeable traits.
00:07:35
Speaker
Also there are friendships, family and gender dynamics that the film series has explored and is continuing to explore with this new series. So to quote Mancini he says, one of my favorite dialogue exchanges in the show is when Chucky is reading Jake's diary. Jake is our main character who is in high school, he's being bullied, he's struggling with his sexuality and he finds Chucky at a yard sale and he's gonna use Chucky
00:08:00
Speaker
to make like a creepy art project. And then he changes his mind, which I think is like key to the plot. Chucky says to Jake, quote, you should just call it Devin, Devin, Devin. And Jake is embarrassed. So Chucky says, you know, I have a queer kid. And Jake is like, what? And you're cool with it? And Chucky says, well, I'm not a monster, Jake. I like to think that over the years and the films that we've brought dimension to Chucky in a somewhat unusual way, I mean,
00:08:29
Speaker
We've seen his home life, his family life, his difficult marriage, and he had a gender-fluid child. And he struggled with that in the seat of Truckee. But at the end came to accept it. So, you know, he's a sort of in a good position to become Jake's seemingly ally.
00:08:46
Speaker
in that way because he's not a bigot, he's not homophobic, he's not racist, he's just a psychopath who doesn't discriminate, he'll kill anybody. So I wanted to talk about this new development because Chucky is such a huge franchise and it has such dedicated following that it does hit all these factors that we talked about last week that I was kind of kicking myself that I actually didn't bring it up.
00:09:12
Speaker
So you can watch this new series which is called Just Chuckie and it's showing on sci-fi and USA Network. So Bianca you've you've never seen any of the Chuckies, never seen like a scene from it or nothing. Um Chuckie I think used to play on TV
Ethical Aspects of Taxidermy
00:09:28
Speaker
like I think Chuckie was kind of one of those TV movies because again like we didn't have cable and so I feel like I remember like watching scenes from it but like
00:09:39
Speaker
So Chucky's the doll is is married so there's like another Chucky movie That's that's called like the bride of Chucky and then there's one with his like son. It's like the seed of Chucky So yeah it like through these like dolls you like explore Chucky's like family Dynamics and then in this like comeback series a big part of it I I don't know which Chucky was the last movie but apparently our director had teased that there were
00:10:07
Speaker
that there was going to be more to come and he did kind of tease the series. So this also has been kind of a long time waiting for some people. But one of the things that we are promised is also these beloved like doll characters to also come back in the series too.
00:10:24
Speaker
Okay, have you seen him? I've seen like bits and bits and pieces of them. Like I feel as though Chucky was one of those movies that was kind of always playing on TV all the time. And it was one of those things where even though I was super freaked out as a kid, I couldn't look away. Like same thing with that other movie where it's like a creepy toy story where the dolls come to life. That movie was always playing on TV. I don't know what that is. You know what I'm talking about? Oh my god.
00:10:52
Speaker
I don't know if that was a kids movie or not, but I don't know. It felt like I had a darker vibe to it than Toy Story, but that one creeped me out too. That's funny. Anyways, I can't remember, but I kind of wish this new series was a little bit more accessible. I don't have access to either of these things, these platforms, but I would be interested in kind of watching them. I feel as though as an adult, Chucky could be like a cult classic horror movie that me, a scaredy cat, could handle.
00:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I think something about his voice like I can't. To me, you know, it's funny because I think his voice is so purposeful in the fact that it's not super creepy. It's more like sarcastic.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It's like it's I don't know, but maybe I'll maybe I'll give it a try. I'm not gonna watch it myself for the first time So I have to wait if someone does has access to it or if someone is watching it Let us know because I was interested in the plot line and how our main character Jake is being bullied by his peers and so I think my understanding was like Chucky is trying to convince him that
00:12:01
Speaker
to essentially murder or get his bullies back. But then you think, oh, Chucky is his friend. And that's what Chucky does. He befriends you, but then he manipulates you to do all these psychopathic things. But then these bullies start to be humanized. And then you're like, oh, wait, no, don't murder people. So I do think that it's interesting that it's this
00:12:28
Speaker
particular series is taking place with a younger crowd in high school dynamics. So it should be interesting if anyone has access to it. Let us know. But I just thought a good kind of art news story to piggy pack off of from last week. Cool. Well, should we get into today's art pop talk?
00:12:48
Speaker
Today we are so excited to introduce to you my friend Foster W. Krepp. Foster is an emerging museum student and researcher. He graduated from West Chester University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology
00:13:03
Speaker
and minors in art history and museum studies. Currently, Foster is doing a master's in public administration program at Westchester University. His primary research interests are taxidermy, habitat and anthropology dioramas, and museum commercialization, which is
00:13:21
Speaker
So fascinating. I want to hear more about that. Foster will be presenting salvaging anthropology dioramas at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting this November. So we're going to take a lethal break. And whenever we come back, we will be joined by Foster W. Kraft.
Taxidermy: Art, Science, and Dioramas
00:14:09
Speaker
All right. Welcome back, everyone. We are now joined by our very special guest this week, Foster W. Krupp. Hello, Foster. Thanks for being here today. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be on the show. Yay. Can you introduce yourself to the art pop tarts and tell us a little bit about who you are?
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah, I'm Foster W. Krupp. I'm a pretty young scholar student. I just graduated from undergrad at Westchester University with my Bachelor of Arts in anthropology. But then I also minored in art history and museum studies. And then just this fall, I started my master's program still at Westchester doing public administration. And I'm hoping to pursue a career in the museum field or museum administration at some point down the line.
00:14:59
Speaker
So many different things foster, you're clearly a person that wears many different hats in the museum world. So we're really excited to have you on today, particularly because this is a subject that I am
00:15:14
Speaker
I have a hard time looking at and analyzing in the visual world because of the creep factor. And I truthfully have a hard time analyzing this work, which is why we need your expertise today. But I'm hoping that you can first off talk to us a little bit about your experience with your research on taxidermy. Yeah. So my main research focus is definitely taxidermy, particularly in the
00:15:41
Speaker
having that diorama context. So I, you know, my earliest memories really are going to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Houston, Texas and looking at the taxidermy ducks and like wonder how they did it. Like it was just like such a wonderful experience for me, which I know it's not the same for everyone else.
00:16:02
Speaker
I was like wow that's so cool and you know seeing the animal you know frozen forever in time like it was just a really you know it was something I thought about a lot as a kid and you know ended up in museum studies and research and uh when I was in high school you know I kind of knew this was what I wanted to do so my
00:16:22
Speaker
co-op was working at my local children's museum. So I actually helped them clean taxidermy for in high school. And that was kind of my first like hands-on experience, you know, working with taxidermies. And then, you know, in undergrad, I was a co-curator at the Westchester University Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology and had the great opportunity to co-curate three exhibits, two of which I got to work with taxidermy and animal specimens.
00:16:49
Speaker
Wow, that is fantastic. I had known a little bit about your background just on the research side of things, but I didn't know that you have actually been a part of the physical process of what entails
00:17:01
Speaker
taxidermy and how that actually comes about. So that is wild. Just hearing about someone else's first memory of a museum, too. I feel like Gianna and I just, I guess, naturally gravitate toward that art lens. But it's really interesting to actually hear people in a different kind of museum system talk about their first experience with that other type of museum display and that type of curation. That is so interesting.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a naturalist museum guy, but I love art museums too. So I want to talk about the word taxidermy a little bit. Can you tell us, does taxidermy literally mean skin art or arrangement? And then how did taxidermy actually come about?
Acquisition and Management of Specimens
00:17:51
Speaker
such an unnatural thing, even though it belongs in natural history museums, it feels very weird that things literally frozen like that are so often natural.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, so the etymology of the word taxidermy is like the arrangement of skin. And, you know, taxidermy from the, you know, what we think of when we think of taxidermy is relatively recent human history. You know, the age of exfoliation and colonization, you know, that's when people started to get interested in taking these birds from the New World, bringing them back to their cabinets of curiosity and kind of keeping them forever because
00:18:32
Speaker
a lot easier to get a dead bird skin over the ocean than an alive bird. So, and you know, because the Cabinet of Curiosities is kind of our proto museum, one of our proto museums, you know, taxidermy has its kind of roots, you know, intertwined with the museum itself. But taxidermy, I think is one of the, the, you know, it's part of our conscious a little bit, and, you know, not always in like a comfortable way, you know, I think the
00:19:00
Speaker
you know, less museum logical, you know, trophy hunting and that kind of stuff is, you know, what some people think of when they hear that word taxidermy. So maybe you're thinking of, you know, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast and his wall of antlers versus the habitat dioramas I study.
00:19:19
Speaker
And it's funny that you bring that up because regards to those different kinds of environments like the trophy, I might actually skip to this next question, Bianca, is that taxidermy animals are categorized differently based on their usage or environment. At least that's how I understand them. So a specimen is an exact replica of an animal as it appears in the wild.
00:19:44
Speaker
But as you said, we do have that example of the trophy. That's something for sport. But are there other qualifying categories in which taxidermy is used? I think something in a more like modern context, as you just said, taxidermy is something that is relatively new. And I think through my, you know, basic kind of sense of research, it is something that is being explored in other areas.
00:20:07
Speaker
something that Bianca and I have looked at is a little bit of death portraiture and how people are, you know, freezing these moments in time for their beloved pets, which is quite interesting.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're absolutely correct in your research. You know, the idea of the specimen, you know, that's our very museum-oriented, you know, idea of taxidermy. And, you know, that's maybe where your study skins come into play, where, you know, you just have an animal skin preserved and you're just stuffing it kind of with stuffing, essentially. But then you kind of have the habitat groups, which is like the American term for like when you have these
00:20:47
Speaker
dioramas that have a taxidermy animal in it and then you have a background painting and then you have these you know artificial foreground elements to kind of create the environment where the animal lives and you know that's where you know Carl Akeley and kind of the modern one of the modern fathers of taxidermy you know where he
00:21:05
Speaker
would rather than just stuffing an animal with stuffing, you know, to have like the shape of an animal. He actually sculpted the veins and muscles of the animal and, you know, created these like, you know, under the skin, you have like this base where you can put the skin on and then you have a more realistic looking animal that you can pose in a more dynamic way.
00:21:27
Speaker
So that's kind of where the museum stops in terms of where you go into the trophies.
00:21:36
Speaker
definitely pet taxidermy is definitely one of the more interesting sides of it, where you have a lot of people who are very interested in preserving their pet. But with taxidermy, you're not necessarily making 100% accurate reproduction of the living animal. It's almost a caricature. You're trying your very, very best to recreate something that you really can't recreate.
00:22:00
Speaker
uh, now that it's dead. And then, you know, the other interesting kind of direction of taxidermy, you know, you have these, you know, uh, anthropomorphized, you know, like Walter Potter's, uh, rabbit school, where, you know, you're taking real animals and you're putting them in human situations. So he was a British taxidermist, Victorian era, who, you know, created these kind of fantasy scenes where he put rabbits in human situations. Whoa.
00:22:27
Speaker
And you know, Dr. Seuss with his, you know, he making fake animals with real animal parts, you know, so there's all kinds of different directions texts that are me has gone from just even an art history perspective. Wow, that's really wild. And it's interesting too, that you just the verbiage, I guess that you're using to talk about it and like the word specimen were in art history. I'm so used to saying object. And so like, I don't know, as I'm thinking about
00:22:56
Speaker
like I'm thinking about them as like pieces in a collection. So I have a lot of questions about like how taxidermy is understood through that museum studies lens and I liked what you were saying too about that sense of like artistry and that like that idea of like having this
00:23:18
Speaker
out of this sense of being able to sculpt a body that's not yours, even if it's an animal body, that's interesting. And even thinking about modern day mortuary practices, painting skin and what different people do at funeral homes to preserve that body and make it look
00:23:41
Speaker
as lively and realistic as possible. So I think that's an interesting echo, I guess, to human death portraiture. But yeah, can you talk about that a little bit more? Is it considered an art form? What does the scientific but historical process look like, or how are they combined? Yeah, I think the thing that makes taxidermy interesting is it's both a science and an art at the same time.
Museums' Role in Preserving Taxidermy
00:24:06
Speaker
And you do have kind of this overlap where you're creating a scientific representation of an animal, you know, but you're also creating an artistic representation of an animal. So I think that's why a lot of these, you know, habitat dioramas that still exist in American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum, you know, Los Angeles County Natural History, like there's a lot of
00:24:32
Speaker
these habitat dioramas that are still around, you know, almost 100 to 100 or over 100 years later, because there's such like great works of science and art kind of at their best, you know, this early part of the 20th century when these dioramas and taxidermy in the museum setting really started to emerge, you know, it was kind of before
00:24:53
Speaker
you know color photography color film where you know something that people had access to and you know this before people were necessarily you know traveling to parts of Africa parts of Asia and even parts of the United States where these you know big animals and these really awesome natural habitats you know still exist so you have to think like that maybe these people who
00:25:16
Speaker
we're visiting New York history's Natural History Museum, Chicago's Natural History Museum, we're maybe not ever gonna be at a point in their life where they were gonna go to Africa and see a zebra or see an elephant or lion in its natural habitat. So this is the closest that they are ever gonna get to experiencing that. So that's this kind of interesting history scientific lens, but then it's also only possible with the artistry of these artists who are employed by museums to construct these.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yeah. It's interesting to hear you talk about the coming about of taxidermy and how I think so often when we view these, Bianca, I want to say objects too, but when we view these specimens or even these trophies, even in a museum or historical setting, even in Oklahoma, I have visited a historical site where it feels very much like I am just looking at.
00:26:08
Speaker
a trophy case of taxidermy animals. But you viewed them in the sense that, oh, like you just said, we have to look at how this was for people who might have not had the means to travel so they can share their experience in these different kinds of
00:26:25
Speaker
I don't know, immersive, different ways. But to piggyback off of Bianca's question, I really am ignorant to how, especially like natural history museums today, acquire taxidermy animals, or I mean, and really to hear you say that you've been a part of the taxidermy process under kind of a museum umbrella, I think is really interesting, because I'm so ignorant to how do they acquire taxidermy animals? Or are they doing the process themselves? Or is that something that's still
00:26:55
Speaker
necessary? Do we need to keep continuing to taxidermy animals that we do have the means to travel to go see? I'm also curious about that ethical moral standpoint. In today's terms, how that relates to Gianna's question, as a historian and a museum scientist, are there different moral and ethical standards that are in place today as far as practices go?
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, with the big museums in the United States, when they first started to develop taxidermy displays and habitat dioramas and that such, it really was a bunch of old white men getting on a boat going to Africa or getting on a plane going to Africa and just going wild and shooting a mom and shooting a dad and shooting the children. So you kind of have the whole representation. I mean, Theodore Roosevelt went on, I think, three different expeditions for the Smithsonian Institute after his presidency.
00:27:50
Speaker
You know, it's very much involved in New York's expeditions as well. And so I mean, I think one of the things to consider, you know, you know, from the ethical
00:28:01
Speaker
standpoint is that it was a different time and people had different attitudes about how the natural world should be protected and preserved. I think a lot of the scientists and artists who are working on taxidermy and natural history, museums and exhibits at the time thought that they were doing the right thing because they were bringing a piece of this wild to people who weren't going to see it and they were also
00:28:29
Speaker
you know, preserving these specimens, you know, in the museums at a time when museums were all collecting still actively, which I think a lot of museums, especially natural history museums, aren't necessarily, you know, collecting tacitory specimens anymore, you know, they're just kind of working with what they have. You know, another avenue, certainly, you know, the illegal wildlife trade, when things get seized by that, they're usually
00:28:54
Speaker
end up in Natural History Museum collections, you know, to be safe from it and then potentially also be used in educational contexts rather than just sitting in government warehouses, you know, being confiscated. But in terms of like, I think that
00:29:12
Speaker
I don't think in now, where we are now, especially of climate change and with the deterioration of so many animal species and environments, I don't think it would be ethical to go out and create a new habitat diorama today. That involves you going and shooting animals, but I think that
00:29:30
Speaker
protecting and preserving the ones we have is important. I think one of the things a lot of people don't realize when they're looking at habitat dioramas, especially you know the New York ones that I primarily study, is that they are real places and you know that every single one of these dioramas you know is a
00:29:49
Speaker
snapshot of what this, you know, environment looked like, you know, at the beginning of the 20th century. So, you know, at some point they may be our only record of, you know, what it would have looked like for a bunch of zebras and drafts and a pachy to be, you know, at a watering hole or, you know, what a bunch of lions and a pride would look like. So I think that's like a scary like idea to think about, but it's also, I think, one we have to think about, you know, with the way we are treating the natural world.
Plastinization vs. Taxidermy
00:30:17
Speaker
Right, because it's like we have these objects. So acknowledging the traumatic history and how these objects are sourced, but also we have them. So what's the alternative to just throw them away and to really disrespect these bodies and these specimens in that way might as well. Learn about them and teach about the whole history. So that's super interesting. So one of the things that's also important to consider with this sort of thing, with habitat dioramas, is this diorama dilemma.
00:30:46
Speaker
where you have a piece of science, but you also have a piece of art. So you can't really take apart a habitat diorama and take one of the lions out and then just leave the rest because you have this kind of empty spot. So if you want to get rid of your dioramas, that's ethical and I think a very logical decision for a lot of smaller institutions, but you also destroy a piece of art too.
00:31:13
Speaker
So there's this kind of museum history, but also, you know, this artistic human history as well that's destroyed when you, you know, change dioramas and you remove dioramas. So I think that's one of the things that allows museums are trying to figure out what to do with them because of the ethical question series.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really helpful way to put taxidermy in terms of the visual world or the art world for our listeners, too. We talk about that so much. I mean, obviously, there's a bunch of visual artworks that are super problematic or we don't love to learn about, but they need to be preserved because otherwise, it's just a racing history. So it's all one and the same. It's a lovely field we are in. But I love that idea of context, shifting context.
00:32:00
Speaker
for a natural history museum as well. Like obviously Gianna and I talk about that with art objects on the podcast, but exactly like what you were saying with climate change. I mean, I think that is a super fascinating way to recontextualize these like potentially problematic dioramas or like objects or specimens that you have in a collection like that, like that idea of focusing on climate change is like
00:32:23
Speaker
horrifying, but also I think a really important contextual key that we can use to reevaluate objects like that.
00:32:32
Speaker
So Foster, I wanted to kind of transition and you may have listened to one of our earlier episodes for our last Art Lewing series where we did talk about the bodies exhibition and talking about the preservation of human bodies through what's called plastinization. So I know that the way those bodies are on display preserving organs is that is like a fundamental difference between plastinization and taxidermy. But again, through my very surface level research and
00:33:01
Speaker
and learning about tanning and even how leather is made. I would like our listeners to have a little bit of technical knowledge on the differences between these types of exhibition spaces, but also the differences in the processes as well. Yeah, I mean, with body worlds and taxidermy animals that you might see at your local museum, I mean, you're exactly correct, where it's the
00:33:28
Speaker
preservation of, you know, organs and like kind of the human, you know, internal systems rather than the human external systems and, you know, the skin with the animal and taxidermy. So with taxidermy, you know, the things, the parts of the body you can really preserve, you know, long periods of time for hundreds of years or the skin and fur and hooves and bones and stuff like that, teeth.
00:33:52
Speaker
But, you know, the internal organs are just not something that you're able to preserve, you know, chemically like you do with the plasticization where you're, you know, essentially transforming the state of matter that the human specimens and, you know, the animal specimens too. I think Body Worlds has a horse, right?
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think they do have some animals, but this is maybe like a super kind of creepy question, but I think we're also nearing these questions as we get into the creep factor. But reading so much about the process of taxidermy is essentially
00:34:30
Speaker
The amount of descriptions I read is the person stretching the skin over the armature. When I read those descriptions, what it made me think of, because I do listen to my favorite murder podcast, is
00:34:45
Speaker
that serial killer that would like stretch human skin over like lampshades and would make like purses or different like objects out of human skin. And it was wild like these descriptions feel so normal to read by like anthropologists or by museum studies people or people in the art world but it really had this like super
00:35:09
Speaker
kind of morbid description that I was taken aback, where I've read those descriptions in other very creepy ways. And this is maybe a dumb question or an ignorant question, but we know that plastinization is a process, but can human bodies turn into taxidermy bodies? Has a human body ever been on display through taxidermy?
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah, this is like the fun whole can of worms you can go into when you study taxidermy, but not very well. I mean, and part of that is because of the technical thing you were talking about with the stretching of human skin.
Displaying Human vs. Animal Remains
00:35:44
Speaker
You know, our skin isn't really, you know, chemically or physically able to stretch and be preserved in a realistic looking way, the way an animal covered in fur can be preserved. And, you know, there's similar other animals that also kind of you have this difficulty with
00:36:01
Speaker
rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses and you know the whales like people have tried to taxidermy basically anything but and then human taxidermy is interesting you know it's unfortunately not really you know it certainly has been done but most of the times it has been done it's been done you know from a
00:36:19
Speaker
colonial lens, you know, there was a saan man from Africa who was on display at a Spain, a natural history museum in Spain for, I think 2003, you know, there was 2000s, yeah. And the Carnegie Natural History Museum has a pretty kind of famous taxidermy display called the, it was formerly called the Eric Corrier attacked by lions.
00:36:46
Speaker
And it essentially is a Middle Eastern man on a camel, you know, being attacked by lions. And so for a very long time, you know, scientists have known that, and, you know, museum professionals have known at the Carnegie Museum that the teeth of the man were real, like they were, so they were real human teeth. But when they did some x-ray scans to move this thing, they like realized that there's a human skull underneath as well.
00:37:14
Speaker
So there's this interesting, where did the skull come from? Was it collected with these animals while this French taxidermist was in Africa? Or was it from a French catacomb? We just don't know the answer to this at this point.
00:37:30
Speaker
But a lot of human taxidermy is really more limited to kind of mummification and things that don't really classify as taxidermy from a technical standpoint, but it's certainly been attempted, but mostly to display humans the same way we display animals, which as an anthropologist is, I think a difficult conversation that museums are only beginning to scratch the surface of having.
00:37:59
Speaker
Well, we've talked about so much about, you know, real life human bodies being on display at world fairs and things like that. So, you know, we think it's even just as horrible to have a real life, you know, human be caged, but to disrespect other remains in that way. And even Bianca and I have talked about our kind of uncomfortable relationship with how, especially when you
00:38:22
Speaker
are traveling to like European historical sites and how human remains, just bones are on display. And I know that the Natural History Museum in New York does have human remains in its collection, but just referring to bones, I believe.
00:38:39
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think they have anything beyond bones. And I think a lot of their human remains that are kind of still in their collection that haven't been deaccessioned because of NAGPRA are really kind of ancient humans and hominids for their evolution hall. And Foster, I'm not sure that we have talked about NAGPRA too much on the podcast. Would you mind giving our listeners a brief definition of what NAGPRA is?
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. It was signed in the 1990s, but basically it gives the any federally recognized Indigenous group the right and ability to repatriate
00:39:28
Speaker
I think it's human remains, like objects of very important cultural significance and, you know, any sort of like associated funeral items back into the tribe for kind of what, so that they can kind of do what they want to do with them. And so it basically applies to any institution that receives federal funding. So, you know, all the military, you know, any kind of museum that's a federal museum or receives federal funding, and then also universities as well.
00:39:57
Speaker
Yeah, there's this whole kind of thing. I mean, you know, human remains and displaying human remains where you kind of with natural history museums, you know, the human remains that are displayed or, you know, that have been displayed in the past have typically been of Asian and African and indigenous peoples. And there's usually not European cultural halls and natural history museums. Those are usually history museums. So there's this interesting
00:40:24
Speaker
conversation and, you know, ethical thinking that Natural History Museum said to do with this idea that, you know, we're displaying the other, you know, where we display animals and rocks and minerals, space objects, but we're not displaying, you know, white people in that same way.
Museums vs. Zoos: Roles and Ethics
00:40:43
Speaker
And I guess in bringing it into like a modern context and trying to recontextualize that this
00:40:53
Speaker
Like the idea of putting humans on display is horrific, of course, but we don't really think about that with animals, I suppose. So I'm wondering if that is coming into a larger light. Can you talk with us about like.
00:41:08
Speaker
the creep factor of taxidermy because you've talked about that idea of fascination with the exotic and something that you've never seen before, but is it not disturbing, I suppose? And is there this idea of a haunted presence with animals as there would be in preserving human bodies or even, again, thinking about trauma and those horrors of putting humans on display?
00:41:32
Speaker
Do you feel there's a kind of separation between human and animal worlds within museums? Yeah, I think that's absolutely correct. I mean, I think a lot of most humans in human society do have different values for humans versus animals. I mean, I think a majority of people consume some sort of animal
00:41:55
Speaker
And I think that's definitely changing now. But for a lot of human history, those people were omnivores. So you kind of have to have different values for something that you're consuming versus something that you interact with and are creating culture and society with. I think in terms of the creep factor, I think there definitely is a little bit of a creep factor. And I think it's definitely
00:42:23
Speaker
people are, I think, are having more negative connotations of natural history museums and habitat dioramas than maybe they did in the past. Rachel Pokwin, I wrote a really good book called The Breathless Zoo, where, you know, she's talking about how you, we have this kind of longing for the natural world and animals, and we're kind of using habitat dioramas and taxidermy to
00:42:50
Speaker
in a kind of selfish way to kind of understand ourselves more. What is our relationship with the natural world? I think it's becoming more and more of a conflict we have with the natural world where it's something very colonial about this manifest destiny that the animals and resources are really there for us and to serve us and to help us
00:43:19
Speaker
different ways. And so I think that, you know, having Ted Diarmus was maybe a little bit of a shift where it's like, you know, look at this mom, dad and children of an animal, you know, like you have your moose family. And yeah, I think that helps people maybe understand that animals are
00:43:41
Speaker
I don't think this makes any sense. Sorry. It makes sense. It actually doesn't. It's funny that you talk about the breathless zoo and also our modern day zoos because there are ethical dilemmas with zoos or especially like privately owned zoos. Like, man, we all went through like the tiger king phase of the pandemic. I watched that night. Oh, man.
00:44:12
Speaker
But it is interesting, again, going back to your original contextualization of taxidermies and how those are operating within natural history museums, how those aren't necessarily specimens that those museums are looking to keep making. They're just there to maintain those specimens to preserve that. But in a way, zoos are acting as preservation sites for endangered species and also acting as the same
00:44:42
Speaker
or functioning in the same kind of way to bring attention to animals and have people see those animals who might not have the means to travel to the natural world. So it is interesting how closely they are related, but how they are taking shape.
00:44:58
Speaker
differently, of course, versus the living and the non-living. And museums definitely paid a little catch-up with zoos, because I think zoos in the early, like the mid-50s really realized, like, we need to figure out a new way to contextualize ourselves as, like, people's relationships with zoos were changing. And I think the educational, conservational method, I think, is really something that museums have kind of picked up as well, where it's like,
00:45:25
Speaker
rather than glorifying taxidermy. I think museums are trying to make sure that people know it's an educational tool and it helps people to get more of a sense of an animal space than just a picture or bones of an animal. This kind of makes me think of another question. Can you talk about maybe just the working relationship or the professional relationship between natural history museums and
00:45:53
Speaker
zoos?
Recontextualizing Exhibits and Future Challenges
00:45:54
Speaker
Like, is there a communication or a dialogue taking place between those kinds of institutions? Oh, as someone in more natural history, I don't I don't know if I want to speak for zoo zoos. But I mean, I think that there's a little bit of a rivalry. And there's certainly, you know, there's this ideas where zoos and natural history museums are, I think, you know, sort of cousins, because they have similar values and similar
00:46:20
Speaker
ideas about what they want the public to get when they go to visit them, but I think they go about it in different ways. You hear stories about zoos where they'll put a fake snake in an exhibit so that people can see the snake because the snake's always hiding, and then other zoos live in front of them for becoming museums.
00:46:43
Speaker
I've never heard of that. That's interesting. I read a book a long time ago. Yeah. It's just, it's one of those things where I think with the museum, like you're, you're going to see all the animals you want to see there. Whereas I think it is new. You're going to see whatever animals want to be out that day.
00:47:01
Speaker
museums should rebrand. They should hit the zoos a little harder and be like, yo, you want to see something? It's always out. It's just funny for us, again, to think about more like visual works of art and objects, how as a museum educator in a program, I'm always looking to partner with the next kind of visual institution or a gallery. So when we do
00:47:26
Speaker
Programs particularly with other schools that class can hit our institution and they can hit the next institution and there's a partnership in that communication between us so if i'm just.
00:47:38
Speaker
from a programming standpoint, you know, you go see the breathless zoo, and then the next stop is to go to the actual zoo. You know, that in my head, that feels like a logical kind of thing that would take place. But perhaps there's more of a rivalry than I anticipated.
00:47:57
Speaker
I'm sure there's some collaboration out there too like I know like we published this episode in like some zoo and natural history museum where you'd be like actually we've had a working relationship for 10 years now but I mean I think there is this idea that you know when you're going to a natural history museum you're seeing dead things and I think when you're going to a zoo you're seeing live things and so I think that's like kind of you know connecting back to what we were talking about earlier you know if the natural history museums where you see the dead animals and the dead
00:48:25
Speaker
you know, dinosaurs and fossils, you know, that's where you're gonna see the day cultures too. So you have all these cultural groups, you know, represented in naturalist museums who are still around today. They've just shifted from what they were pre-Columbian times. Yeah. Well, Foster, we need to ask, is there anything else that you'd like to share with us about the practice of taxidermy? Are there any kind of fundamental questions that we have missed today, anything else our listeners should know about?
00:48:55
Speaker
No, I think we've talked about it, you know, I think the one of the things is just to, you know, I think think critically about what
00:49:04
Speaker
how natural history museums can continue to be better and how taxidermy is always gonna be a part of natural history museums and habitat dioramas as well. But it's kind of like, what do we do to recontextualize them to make sure that they're creating the most value for the amount of space they take up? And I think that's a critical museum question for a lot of museum professionals to wrestle with and emerging museum professionals to grow into.
Pop Culture and Dioramas
00:49:32
Speaker
So we have to ask you one fun question before we let you go. And I'm curious, do you love Night at the Museum? No. No, I think it's a really good movie. And I think that's like the thing where it's hard for me because it's like
00:49:53
Speaker
When I was a kid, I was a nerd, too, about museums and stuff. So I was like, that's not what American Museum of Natural History looks like, you know? Where are the dioramas? That diorama isn't there, you know? So I'm a little bit like that in terms of where it's hard for me to enjoy things where it's like the thing I research.
00:50:13
Speaker
What about, like, I don't know if you're a Friends fan, but Ross in Friends working at an actual history museum. I always love, like, those episodes where he's, like, doing museum stuff. I think, like, that's where, like, my anti-cologist comes out, because it's like, you're like, oh, you're like Ross. And I'm like, no, he's a paleontologist.
00:50:32
Speaker
We're different. We study humans, not dinosaurs. It's like that episode of friends where they all sit at different tables, where the scientists sit at one table and the guides sit at one table and then you have gift shop people. Gift shop. Truly the outcasts of the natural history museum. Yeah, the museum world is very segregated.
00:50:57
Speaker
Well, is there anything that you would like to plug before we let you go today? Yeah, so actually I've been working on this academic paper for the American Anthropological Association annual meeting. I'm going to be presenting it in November. It's called salvaging anthropology dioramas. And, you know, it's essentially asking a lot of the same critical questions about, you know, habitat dioramas and taxidermy in the Natural History Museum, but about the anthropology dioramas specifically, which
00:51:25
Speaker
are essentially the same in terms of the construction, but rather than taxidermy animals, you're using mannequins and cultural artifacts that you're displaying in an artificial setting with background painting. That's awesome. You'll have to share with us when it's officially released, or if we can see your presentation anywhere, that would be awesome. For sure. I'd definitely love to. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.
00:51:55
Speaker
It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you both. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us and Foster for today's episode. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, all the good platforms, and we will talk to you all next Tuesday for our last Art Lewin episode. Bye, everyone. Bye.
00:52:19
Speaker
Art Pop Talk's executive producers are me, Bianca Martucci Fink. And me, Gianna Martucci Fink. Music and sounds are by Josh Turner and photography is by Adrian Turner. And our graphic designer is Sid Hammond.
00:52:50
Speaker
you