Animals Off Display

Abstract

This series of photographs is an attempt to explore the impossible spaces of the contemporary zoological garden from a queer ecological perspective. I intentionally focus on the artificiality and finitude of the zoo landscape rather than on nonhuman animal bodies that are already overrepresented in the zoological reimagination of natural habitats. The zoo with its taxidermic taxonomy captures nonhuman animals within the species boundaries, turning them into things on display. Wary of the limits of representation I focus on what usually remains in the background, or functions as an obstacle for “wildlife photography,” on the very edges of the voyeuristic imagemaking practice so present in the zoo nowadays. In this sense I see the zoo as a paradigmatic example of a Foucauldian heterotopia—a real place that stands outside of its space, and creates an illusion of a world in miniature captured in a timeless void.1 There is no fire in a two-dimensional forest; there is no key to the door in the painted jungle. The photographs were taken in various zoological gardens around the world (Hungary, Poland, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada) as part of a large project, “Queer(ing) Naturecultures: The Study of Zoo Animals.