This semester my tutor, Kenny Hunter, has suggested that I do a project outside the studio. I thought this would be a good idea, since much of my frustration with last semester came from having necessary facilities unavailable when I was ready to work. This way, if for instance, the metal shop is closed or the casting room is full, then I have other projects I can work on off the premises.
I decided to examine how we, as a group, look at animals and began by going to the National Museum on Chambers Street, which has a natural history section. It was not very busy but after a while, I was able to take a few candid shots of visitors looking at the taxidermic animals. However it seems that most people don’t examine the animals, they get all the visual information they need walking up, instead they examine the plaques and video terminals surrounding the animals.
After that visit, I thought I would try the Edinburgh Zoo and see how people saw the animals there. The Edinburgh Zoo opened in 1913 and is the only zoo in Britain granted a Royal Charter.¬†The original charter defined the zoological society’s mission as being “to promote, facilitate and encourage the study of zoology and kindred subjects and to foster and develop amongst the people an interest in and knowledge of animal life.” The zoo was the first to breed and hatch penguins in captivity and has had a successful captive breeding program with beavers, sea lions, chimpanzees and wolves born there over the years. During World War II, after a stray bomb killed a giraffe, it was decided to euthanize many of the “dangerous” animals in case they were freed by another bombing. During the 90’s, the zoo lost a number of animals due to various diseases, and some were moved to the Highland Wildlife Park, a 105 acre safari park in the Cairngorms.
I visited the zoo on a Wednesday after it had snowed that week, so there were few visitors and the landscape was rather bleak and unnatural looking. I noticed that although the park was built along the lines of modern zoos, with enclosures that try to mimic the natural environment, it still had the look of a Victorian Zoo, with obviously man-made structures and geometric cage-systems. It was understandable that many of the tropical animals were not out romping in their snow covered enclosures. Their heated houses (with viewing areas) were preferable to them.
As I watched the few visitors there, I noticed that people simply ignored the fact that there was metal mesh between them and the animal. They would point and stare and take pictures without really noticing the cage wall before them. Some of them would try to position their lens within the square of mesh, but not all. Many would simply trust their auto-focus to know that they wanted a picture of the animal and not the bars.
Since many of the photos I took that day were of the animals since there were so few people around, I decided to step back and take some pictures that deliberately focussed on the cages. This became the basis of my photo project.
Here are some of the initial photos from those two days: