Gaia’s breath

A mise en scène of animals that reminds us at first glance of a scene from a Walt Disney production: a deer surrounded by birds, friendly meetings among various animals, butterflies on the window…

On closer inspection these turn out to be wounded animals. They bear their wounds as honorary medals.

What is going on here? Gaia breathes over these road casualties and returns them to life. We see them here, each in another stage of their new life. Like a Garden of Eden, a second chance. The cat, opposite to the fox, is the only domestic pet. It observes the fox, gnawing on a rib, in horror. Did it understand that this rib might represent the rib of a human? This installation could pose the question which role humanity plays in our shared existence on earth.

Gaia’s Breath is the result of two years of work. The artist investigated the art of taxidermy and methods of conservation. Her research also included the dying rituals of Native Americans. She learned to use their tanning techniques, which utilize the bark of oak trees. Over a period of 2 years she collected corpses of animals who had been killed by traffic. Naturally, she requested and acquired permission from the vetinary services in her region before starting to process these animals.

For the ground-based animals she crafted bodies of white plaster. Their eyes are ceramics, based on the view of the dead eyes of the deer when the skin had just been removed from its head. The birds, in order to maintain their diminutive weight, were filled only with their jewels of paraffin or with nylon stockings. The owl is filled with straw.

• Dimensions: variable.
• Years: 2017-2018.