Natural History : Ghosts and Monsters

This series of photos attempts to capture the surprising and often bizarre creatures that populate the display cases of museums of natural history. The skulls, skeletons and stuffed animals, with their frozen horrified stares, remnants of passed exploration and classification, tell us as much about our society and our relationship to nature, as they do about the science. They are the haunting witnesses to an era when nature was strange and frightening, something to be controlled, classified, and catalogued.

The photos are presented as portraits, and reworked to accentuate the strangeness of these creatures. I have tried to capture the wonder and awe that I experienced as a young child when visiting museums of natural history. I remember these museums as being dark, dusty, and mysterious - their displays seemingly inhabited by creatures from some gothic fairy tale. The ghostly presence of these specimens in my photographs reflects my tenuous memories of these visits.

All photos taken at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Marseille, France, Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Toulouse, and the Museo di Storia Naturale di Venezia, Italy.