Museum of Extinction

2023

In consideration of my master thesis, “How can the re-presentation of animal materialities in art and artefacts re-form public opinion about the sixth mass extinction?”, I have developed a speculative museum of the future along with the physical artefacts that will in due time populate its halls. These hand-crafted “animalARTefacts” explicitly incorporate dead animal bodies to draw attention to narratives around the loss of biodiversity. This hypothetical museum makes the objects in its collection available for loan to actual museums in the present, to create site-responsive artistic interventions that re-contextualise existing narratives around human/animal relationships in cultural spaces. 

"Falling", 2023, Installation: Bullfinch, Magpie, Firecrest, Blue Tit, Hooded Crow, Cuckoo, bones, thread, found object⁠, 250 x 100 x 100 cm⁠

"Sands of Time", 2023, Mixed-Media Sculpture: Hooded Crow, plant material, soil, glass, polyurethane, wire, 30 x 20 x 20 cm

"Arrested Decay", 2023, Mixed-Media Sculpture: Greenfinch, fungi, moss, clay, 12 x 12 x 12 cm

"Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner?", 2022, Mixed-Media Sculpture: Rooster, Bohemian Waxwing, egg carton, wire, 50 x 25 x 25 cm

Birdcage

2023

Museum of Extinction invited Ringve Musikkmuseum to be the first public space to take an animalARTefact on loan. Birdcage was displayed in the Lydspor exhibition from May 5 – 21, 2023. A Rainbow Lorikeet suspended in a sculptural cage of bones, Birdcage has been designed to comment on exotic animal bodies embedded in the Ringve Musikkmuseum instrument collection. Accompanied by the sound of flapping wings, the juxta-positioning of the motionless body with the subtle sound of movement serves as a trigger for the recontextualization of animal materialities arrested in a time and place foreign to their own. 

"Birdcage", 2023, Mixed-Media Sculpture: Rainbow Lorikeet, bones, wire, glue, 100 x 40 x 40cm