Other animals
In Finnish schools a menagerie of glassy eyed fauna watch from amongst sports trophies in hallway cabinets and collect dust on high shelves.
The collections are seen by some as an archaic barbarity that should no longer be celebrated, but is it that having these daily reminders of the fragility of nature provoke an unspoken guilt in us?
In Finnish schools a menagerie of glassy eyed fauna watch from amongst sports trophies in hallway cabinets and collect dust on high shelves.
The collections are seen by some as an archaic barbarity that should no longer be celebrated, but is it that having these daily reminders of the fragility of nature provoke an unspoken guilt in us?
If you know of an interesting collection of taxidermy in a Finnish school, please send me a message and let me know. I’m especially keen to find a bear!
Muut eläimet records the tradition of displaying taxidermy animals in Finnish schools and explores what these collections reveal about our relationship to the study of nature and nature itself.
Taxidermy is most often found in Museums of Natural History, with details of both the animal and the taxidermist carefully catalogued. Classification data is crucial in elevating the stuffed animal from a mere ornament to a dependable source of study and knowledge.
The pursuit of edification also brought taxidermy into schools: mounted animals were employed as learning aids, to show proof and allow close study. But taxidermy fell out of fashion as the ideals of education changed and our understanding of the natural world advanced. The taxidermied animals were left to gather dust and eventually forgotten.