Taxidermy and a Poetics of Strangeness
Rachel Poliquin will explore the cultural history of taxidermy from its earliest beginnings in sixteenth-century wonder cabinets to taxidermy’s unsettling reinvention in twenty-first century art.
Poliquin is a freelance writer and curator engaged in all things orderly and disorderly in the natural world. She is the author of The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing and Beaver, part of Reaktion Books’ Animal Series. She has written for a variety of periodicals including The New York Times, Science Friday, and The Believer Magazine. Her curatorial works includes “Ravishing Beasts: The Strangely Alluring World of Taxidermy” for the Museum of Vancouver and the permanent vertebrate exhibits for the Beaty Museum of Biodiversity. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.