18. Ipswich Museum

The Ipswich Museum in Ipswich (Suffolk)

is an incredible place ripe with natural history and ancient artifacts.

There is plentiful taxidermy, archaeology and geology,

amongst centuries of human history.

(Egyptian, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Buddhist, Islamic, Ancient Japanese, and much more).

I visited to gather some independent first hand research of the nature and history available, with the hope of discovering some inspiration for my project along the way.

Below is my documentation.

Above are three images that directly relate to my project through the use of dead/preserved creatures.

The taxidermy butterflies are similar to the ones that I sourced and experimented on. The way that they have been presented is uninteresting to me. It is very clinical, the lighting is terrible (you cannot see the full effect of the patterns of the wings) and there is far too much text. The butterflies themselves are lost by the viewer's eyes. Correct lighting could possibly fix this.

 The snake skeleton is reminiscent of  Tyler Thrasher's piece below.

Seeing the snake skeleton in person made me realise how large Thrasher's piece could have been in comparison.

In the Geology section, I came across a child's skull. This reminded me immediately of Damien Hirst's work with skulls as well as John LeKay's.

The deformation of the teeth is entirely natural, but as it is not often seen in nature, it is unsettling and intriguing to the viewer. I enjoy the idea that an innocent child's skull can bring so much discomfort to a viewer.

I was interested in this Shark's tooth for similar reasons. It is motionless, smooth, beautiful and natural, but it is a connotative object evoking danger, so many viewers will be interested in it purely because of that. 

Above are two naturally forming crystals. The above crystal is my favourite. It is especially interesting to me due to the fact that it is still neatly embedded in mud instead of removed, cleaned and presented as shiny and "new"- I appreciate that viewers are allowed to observe it in its natural state, and appreciate where natural crystals came from.

I found the natural forms of these shells interesting.
I think that they would be an interesting thing to grow crystals onto.

More butterflies. I found this layout much more effective.

A single frame as a boundary works to highlight the contents, instead of using many boxes with text inside that distract from the subject. The tiny labels below these pieces are informative but not overpowering.

If I was to present my own butterflies, I would use a simple frame with minimal text as inspired by this layout.

The shells above have natural iridescence much like that of my wasp and bee wings below.
In the larger shell, a "rainbow" can be seen where the light reflects in a specific spot. The shell is entirely natural, making the naturally precious lustre even more precious.

The museum also had plentiful rooms of human history, although I did not find much inspiration within them, spare this single Egyptian head.

The golden mount had taken damage and began to crack and break on the forehead. I enjoyed the strong contrast between what was pristine/golden/precious, to what was broken/geometric/natural.

Below are some interesting scenes captured in taxidermy.

I am captured by the way that these creatures still appear to be alive, just frozen in time and never to age. They have been effectively taxidermied and constructed into a realistic scene. This impacts the viewer much more than it may have if the bird was simply sat there.

I think that it is especially effective how the beaks of some sculptures are open, evoking emotion and allowing the viewers to imagine the sounds that the bird would have made in life.

I would like to imagine a scene like the ones above completely engulfed in crystals. Should I have ever been able to afford a complex scene of taxidermy animals/insects/humans, I would love to have frozen them in time within my crystal growing techniques. This would transform the pieces from scientific, natural and recognisable into something haunting, intriguing but ultimately beautiful.

I can imagine how the crystals would form, where and how. I would love to see how the crystals would form inside the open beaks of the taxidermy birds, and how they would stick to every feather, every fibre of the young bird "fluff", and every blade of grass.

I imagine that it would appear to be like some sort of natural disaster. Like a nuclear explosion that had captured everything in its wake, but instead of obliterating its victims, they are immobilised in ice (crystals).

I experimented briefly on Paint Tool SAI and layered some images to create some concept images.

If I had more time and funds, I would aim to bring these images to life using real borax crystals instead of digital ones.

Although, throughout the whole museum, the things that I found the most inspiration in were very small in size.

I enjoyed how the parrot skeleton was encased in a dome. It was reminiscent of a snow globe, and affirmed the idea that he was eternally frozen and paralyzed in that dome.

The examples below are blurry, because they were on a high shelf and I had to ask a taller human for help photographing them.

I found it very interesting how such large specimens were squeezed and forced to compact inside such tiny jars. The glass holds the specimen upright in an unnatural way. The fact that the glass (and the liquid inside) is clear allows us to admire the strange form of the specimen within. It is reminiscent of a medieval science experiment.

These jars and bottles look like they could have been re-purposed from holding food or drink.
This makes viewing the contents even more eerie and disturbing, with the idea that perhaps you could consume what was inside.

Below I found a motherlode of similar specimens.

These specimens are displayed together in much better lighting, with much stranger subjects. These paralyzed creatures are not animals that you would come across from day to day life. Most of them appear to be from the ocean, or from different countries.

It is unclear how long they have been preserved for, but they are preserved so perfectly that you could almost bet they would come back to life if you opened the jar.
This is eerie for the viewer. Again, they appear reminiscent of medieval alchemy.

The fact that a few of the creatures are "squished" and compacted within small jars makes them assume unnatural positions. This leads them to appear even more frightening, and even harder to understand. The insects are perfectly preserved in every stage, making them frightening to anybody with a phobia of insects.

Although the specimens are labelled and clearly shown, there is a lot of enigma and mystery behind these sculptures. The common viewers have no clue of what the liquid inside the jars are, why they are in the jars, how long they have been there or what they were intended to be used for before they were placed in a museum.

I enjoy the mixed emotions evoked through this strange way of displaying creatures. It is a delicate, scientific, natural display - but it seems unnatural to the common viewer due to how scientific and clinical it is. It personally made me uncomfortable to view these jars because of how strange and irregular they are.

I wonder how it would look to place something "beautiful" into the same situation. It would still be weird, but it would evoke different responses.

I would like to take inspiration from this way of displaying objects and experiment with the use of suspending objects in transparent bases. I can imagine similar effects being given with the use of resin, glass, crystals, or water (or a mixture of all of them).

I am interested in the idea of paralyzing nature, and this is a great example of that.

WARNING: Below are images that some viewers may find upsetting

Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam

Museum Vrolik is a small, 1 room museum hidden away in the depths of Amsterdam. Inside are over 150 preserved specimens of the human anatomy, mostly examples of the deformed and the unusual. Most of the specimens are immortalised in jars of formaldehyde, frozen in time and permanently. Specimens include newborn babies, animal foetuses and fully grown preserved heads. It is not a common tourist attraction as it is not for the faint hearted.

If I had the opportunity to visit this museum for further research, I would have done so. Unfortunately, these images are not my own and were taken from various websites describing the museum.

I am interested in the effect of these specimens on the viewer. They are surreal and abstract, although they are REAL and completely natural in form. They are frozen in time and almost seem alive. All of these things together can evoke strong emotions from the viewer. Not to mention that most of these specimens are BABIES that barely got a chance at life before being eternally frozen in a jar, which could upset some viewers. Pregnant women are not advised to visit the museum.

I can see why the museum would be powerful and upsetting to some viewers. If possible, I would have liked to harness the same power by using deformed structures of my own. I wonder what everything in this museum would look like if I was given the opportunity to grow crystals on it.

I imagine that the outcome would be equally as morbid, but perhaps more bearable. The crystals would add a precious sparkle and shine to the morbid surfaces, or perhaps the dark features/deformations would be completely concealed by the crystals. This would make a strong contrast between something desirable and something morbid.