Artists in wonderland: The South Australian Museum's biodiversity gallery is taking three Craftsouth members into new creative territory

Article by Karen Finch

Photographs by Richard Humphrys

Taxidermy is perhaps best known in the public imagination as a craft of a bygone time, conjuring up images of trophies: deer’s heads with magnificent antlers hanging over hunting lodge fireplaces, or birds of prey mounted on pedestals in grand English country houses. Then there is the preservation of scientific specimens that can be found in natural history museums all over the world. From the province of the 16th- to 17th-century upholsterer who skinned and then stuffed animals to the 18th- and 19th-century model-makers who stretched skin over an armature, taxidermy has evolved into a thoroughly modern craft. Historical techniques and materials such as clay, wire and wax are still used, but they are employed alongside plastics, resins and polyurethanes, among many other materials.

The team behind the creation of a new biodiversity exhibition showcasing the flora and fauna of South Australia at the South Australian Museum is utilising every new technique and material available to it. Jo Bain, a fourth-generation taxidermist who is the SA Museum’s manager of 3D design and chief of this project, has taken the innovative step of assembling a group of artists and craft practitioners including ceramicists, painters, jewellers and a glass blower, in order to enable the very best re-creation of the state’s rich diversity of species across different habitats. ‘We got hundreds and hundreds of applicants for the jobs and whittled them down through interviews. And we’ve got some wonderful people who I don’t think ever thought they would be involved in this sort of stuff’, says Bain.

Many of the people working on the team have, in the past, practiced purely as artists, creating objects for the sake of the process or the object itself. Now they are using their skills in ways that will service a preservation and educational purpose. With Jo’s vast knowledge and experience facilitating the accurate re-creation of species, the artists and craftspeople employ their creative skills to make a gallery of land and sea creatures that is as broad and detailed as the natural environment.

While historically the exchange between art and science in the museum sector has, at times, been quite antagonistic, this project has brought scientists and artists together in a mutually beneficial way. Science underpins the entire project, but experience and skill from the artists is bringing to life scientific knowledge. ‘Knowing anatomy is not enough’, says Bain. ‘You’ve got to know the habits of the animal. And you’ve got to know them intimately. When a bird walks, what angle is its tibiotalar in relation to its femur? Where’s its centre of gravity? When it holds its wings, where are they? Are they close to the body? Are they crossed at the back? Are they held high? Held out? There’s a billion things you need to know about each animal.’

He relates this information to the artists, who must then work within its parameters. Katrina Kenny, who is working as a painter on the biodiversity project, says of this aspect of the work that it requires a particular lack of ego in the work­—it isn’t about interpretation but is entirely dependent upon skill and technique to satisfy the rigid criteria of accuracy.

Bridgette Minuzzo, one of the first artists to join the project, was employed as a sculptor. With a background in science and biology and a love of the natural world, she has been working on casting and moulding, giving her a weekly routine of experimenting with materials and problem solving, specimen by specimen. Her pieces have ranged from a large snake—which had to be cast inside a freezer, where it had been set into a particular pose that would have been lost as it thawed—to a particular sea grass that she has painstakingly made from wire and plastics, creating many small elements to be assembled into whole plants.

The use of polyurethanes, fibreglass and resins enables Bain’s team to re-create exquisitely accurate replicas, complete with fins that are as fine and fragile as those of the original fish. Freeze-drying methods, often used to preserve vegetation samples, proved to be unworkable in the case of many succulents, including the common seaside pigface, Carprobrotus, which when freeze-dried shrivelled into something unrecognisable. This temperamental quality has required the artists to find a way of using a flexible resin to mould and cast multiple components which are later assembled to form the thick sprawling habit of this species. Translucent resins and plastics have also been used to make jellyfish and anemones, with paint techniques enhancing the final effect. ‘All the new technology is in place’, says Kenny, ‘but we’re also using some hands-on old-school techniques.’

The need for fine detail has in fact required the artists to experiment with techniques from their crafts, adapting them to new purposes. In one case, the glass blower used a Bunsen burner to form tiny glass eyes for models of a skink that, at its largest, measures about 2.5 cm in length. By casting numerous tiny lizards in flexible resin on wire armatures that can be manipulated, the team can create whole colonies of creatures as varied as they would be in their natural habitat—without wreaking havoc on actual populations by gathering them from the wild.

Painter Megan O’Hara, coming from five years of solo practice as an exhibiting painter, has found the collaborative team environment a significant change from her usual routine. ‘Jo checks in on what we’re doing, sometimes daily, or every couple of days’, she says. ‘If something doesn’t look right, it might need to be washed back or repainted.’ She says the rewards of this project have more than offset what can sometimes feel like a place where artists may have a lack of creative input. In fact, all three artists interviewed commented on the generosity of museum staff, and the sheer volume of newly acquired knowledge has made working on the project a truly extraordinary experience.

Katrina Kenny finds she is particularly enamoured by the experience of finding the recurring patterns in nature from one species and environment to the next, such as circular patterns in sponges that are repeated in stones, calling it a metaphysical correlation between the objects she’s working with and the natural experience—a kind of universal language of our world.

In this extraordinary collaborative process, Jo and his team have realised to an enormous extent the possibility of constructing this gallery without the catching and killing of real animals, avoiding the ensuing ecological implications. ‘Apart from some seaweed and a couple of starfish, we’ve killed nothing’, Jo says. ‘Even with the starfish, we’ve taken about five or six, and the only reason for that is because they can’t be washed up. And we’ve moulded them, so [from these few] we can have lots of starfish.’

By the time the project is finished in early 2010, the entire crew will have collaborated on the production of some 12,000 individual pieces to fill the gallery (and that’s not counting tiny items such as anemones and sea grasses, which alone number in the tens of thousands and must be individually cast and painted). ‘For me, every animal you work on is a product of the last twenty or thirty million years of evolution’, Bain says. ‘It’s remarkable. I never get sick of things.’

Additional reporting by Samantha Riley

MEMBER PROFILES

PROJECTS

READING ROOM

• - Artists in wonderland: Craftsouth members in the SA Museum
  
• - How VACS funding helps Craftsouth expand ideas about craft, design & art
  
• - Review: White Heat
  
• - Sole Authorship in the Visual Arts—Fact or Fiction?
  

INFORM Program

RESOURCES

MEMBERSHIP & SERVICES

sponsors