Cabinet of Curiosities

"The zoo cannot but dissapoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal's gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond. They scan mechaniaclly. They have been immuned to encounter, because nothing can any more occupy a central place in their attention."

Extract from "Why Look at Animals" by John Berger

Gods & Animals

How is classifying and cataloguing like writing poetry? Writing is a way for me to find order in chaos. Cataloguing visuals, things, ideas, thoughts, memories into boxes or rooms and the poems are of course the rooms. But how to "freeze" the ideas, memories? Taxidermy them.

Linnaeus named and classified animals and plants as a means of organizing the things of the world with the ultimate goal to study all of God's creations. He believed by studying God's creations, he could gain a better understanding of God.