Strange archive of incredible lost species

[Still Waters]

In the summer of 1980, while staying in a gloomy old mansion on the rugged coast of Cape Wrath in the far north of Scotland, my friend Pere Formiguera and I happened upon a strange archive.

It was a dreary afternoon; we didn't feel like venturing out and so decided to go into the cellar. The damp, musty storeroom instantly aroused our curiosity: the cobweb-covered shelves were piled with notebooks, photographic plates, dissection instruments and jars of formaldehyde. On the floor we found the most grotesque stuffed animals.

http://www.telegraph...-with-legs.html

[Scandal]

Certainly is weird.

[ChrLzs]

Ahem... In case anyone doesn't twig.. it's one of those 'artistic installations' and is a (quite clever and thorough) fictional creation. Have a long slow read of this link to a New York Times review of the show when it was on at the Museum of Modern Art - in that article you will find a lengthy review and discussion, including these bits:

.. the viewer is actually perusing ''Fauna,'' a strange, precise and in many ways enchanting scientific hoax. It is a collaborative work of Conceptual art created over the past three years by two young Spanish artists, Joan Fontcuberta and Pere Formiguera...

...''Fauna'' is well done and engaging, alternately convincing and completely transparent...

...the photos are often hilariously homemade in appearance...

...perfectly balances science and myth, method and imagination, it seems to bridge an important childhood gap between the natural history museum and the art museum...

Added PS - You can find some more of Fontcuberta's photography and image manipulation skills here at this link - you will see that she is quite the Photoshopper!

Edited August 13, 2014 by ChrLzs

[Mac E]

He was quite the skilled taxidermist it looks like. They don't mention the extinct species by name or in any great detail. All I saw were fictional taxidemied species.

[magikgoddess]

Cool looking taxidermy job on those.

[Sundew]

What? No Fiji Mermaid?