
A cluster of rats
Categories: Curiosities, history, Museums • Tags: japan, museum, netsuke, rat, sculpture, unsettling
Categories: Curiosities, history, Museums • Tags: japan, museum, netsuke, rat, sculpture, unsettling
My last post on the inflatable skins in James Lomax’s Untitled (Me and My Friend) (2011) reminded me of this ridiculously interesting series of photographs from the archives of the American Museum of Natural History. Taken between 1933-1935 by Thane L. Bierwert, they show museum staff engaged in the task of cleaning and re-mounting the skin of an elephant for display. As well as offering a great (and I suspect rare) behind-the-scenes glance of a 1930s natural history museum, that […]
Categories: history, Museums • Tags: elephant, history, museum, skin, taxidermy, unsettling
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the preserved skins of exotic animals from faraway lands were brought back to Europe by explorers. The hides would be handed over to taxidermists whose job it was to prepare them for display by stuffing the skins and giving them a life-like appearance. However, the taxidermists often just had to guess at the shape and appearance of these unfamiliar animals based on crude sketches and descriptions, resulting in grotesque physical distortions which would […]
Categories: Contemporary Art • Tags: art, body, grotesque, inflatable, installation, sculpture, taxidermy, unsettling
Categories: Curiosities, history • Tags: death, hidden mothers, images, photography, unsettling, victorian era
Leeches have been used for bloodletting for centuries. In fact, they became so popular in the 18th and 19th centuries that they were almost farmed to extinction in Europe. Although falling out of fashion in the later half of the 20th century, their medical use is making a comeback in microsurgery and reconstructive surgery due to the anti-coagulant properties of their secretions, which is useful for reducing blood clots and venous pressure from pooling blood, and for healing skin grafts. […]
Categories: Curiosities, history • Tags: advertisements, ephemera, illustration, images, leeches, medicine, nostalgia, science, unsettling, victorian era
Categories: history • Tags: art, erotic, history, photography, prostitute, unsettling
Categories: Contemporary Art • Tags: art, landscape, photography, scotland, suicide, trees, unsettling
Categories: Contemporary Art • Tags: albino, art, face, photography, unsettling