Welcome!

This website is an invitation into the thoughts and reflections that have resulted from a few years of snapping photos of fake taxidermy as I go about my normal life. As I have grown exceedingly anxious about the lack of organization in my iCloud photo library, this is an attempt to organize my photographs and my accompanying thoughts about them. Perhaps after this deliberation I will be able to put this research to rest and give my iPhone photo library some space to breathe. If you are someone committed to animal welfare or critical animal studies, perhaps you will understand this weighty presence of inanimate animals in various parts of your life. If so, I have tried to write this text in a form that will resonate with you. I hope that its list-like nature mirrors the ways in which animal representations in urban contexts bounce into our minds, ears and eyes everyday. I know that my unplanned meetings with faux taxidermy have come in a continuous and unpredictable stream, each time curious and bestowing a new story allowing me to “stay with the trouble”. Overall, I am concerned with how we present ever-evolving relationships between humans and animals through visual cultural practices.

Faux taxidermy means objects that deliberately mimic real taxidermy for decorative purposes. They can be found in boutiques, restaurants, cafes, homes or bars and are fabricated from materials such as plastic, ceramic, wood, or cardboard. I would be lying if I said that an analysis of their existence did not feel urgent to me. From childhood we are told that trends are fleeting. And I am not willing to wait, like my blessed mom with her high-waisted Levi’s, for this trend to boomerang back into existence. After all, the faux taxidermy trend seems to have already come and gone once before prior to my birth. This time it has returned with a vengeance.

My journey with fake taxidermy began in 2016. I was living in Amsterdam at the time, and my way of seeing the city was, like most other residents there, from a bicycle. Unlike New York, where I currently reside, my commute took place above ground, with bike paths weaving me through tiny streets lined with shops, cafes and apartments. As many Dutch people will tell you, their protestant roots prevented them, historically, from boasting. Lucky for me, this ethical dilemma has led to a strikingly pervasive cultural practice in the Netherlands in which people display all of their beautiful belongings in their front windows so that passers-by can “accidentally stumble upon them”. Just like the turn to perspectivism in painting allowed us to see that people who were commissioning portraits also happened to be the wealthy owners of grapes, lobsters, skulls[1]. These windows told many stories. So this U.S. American voyeur made sure to ride slowly, lapping up all the information I could during my four years as a cycling expat. Since living in New York, however, I have noticed that it does not require spy tactics with a runaway vehicle to capture evidence of the fake taxidermy that proliferates the city. Walking my dog near my Chinatown apartment or wandering near NYU in the East Village provides plenty of proof of the continued trendiness of these objects.