Unter die Haut - under the skin
The skin of a buck, that aged and died with the animal is an archive of life, with signs of time engraved in its surface. Scars from fences, wounds from ticks and flies, cuts from butchers, holes from bullets are what tell the history of an animal and how we interacted with it, shaped its surroundings, nurtured it and killed it.
These traces have the power to reveal a relationship that humans have developed with their surroundings, and how our actions within this relationship have an immediate effect on the animal’s life, and the afterlife of its biomass. These traces labeled as faults, illustrate what we cherish as perfection and take home as a trophy and what is rejected and discarded, based on our aesthetic biases and processed industrial perfectionism.
Through the lens of the oldest lasting tradition of utilising buckskin in Austria the research goes underneath the skin, depicting the role of hunting in Austrian forests and what lies beneath the image of a perfect wilderness and ecological equilibrium.
Support by: Widnissgebiet Dürrenstein, Natural History Museum Vienna
Exhibition: Default Surfaces, Housewest, Eindhoven 2024
