‘Botched’ and toxic works of taxidermy

Museum collections of taxidermy works, as well as taxidermy itself, have recently come under growing criticism (Poliquin 2008). This critical approach is a part of a broader discussion on the history of museums, collecting and displaying practices, as well as museums’ relationship with animal death. The practice of taxidermy, and the status and value of taxidermied mounts, are rarely examined in terms of preservation and chemical conservation techniques, and how these have been adapted for museum use. In reality, changes in techniques of mounting and conserving dead animals to be put on display were invariably dependent on technological progress, advances in science, and museum rules. Bearing in mind the transformative potential of the material, and conceptualising museum collections as ‘collections of processes rather than as collections of “objects”’ (Domuniguez Rubio 2014), this chapter focuses on several examples of unsuccessful, timeworn or deformed works of taxidermy (botched taxidermy) (Baker 2000). This paper also pays attention to the toxicity of taxidermied mounts stemming from the changing techniques of their production, restoration, and conservation, in order to explore the complex, ambiguous relationships between killing, the transformation of the materiality of taxidermied mounts, and the practice of preservation and conservation in science museum settings.