Dead Mice Get Second "Life"

Divya Anantharaman

00:00:11.70

It is incredibly emotional. I don't think I'll ever be numbed to death. If anything, it just becomes more and more this real feeling of life just stops. It stops. It just stops. I'm on the other side of the scalpel, for now.


00:00:28.57

Taxidermy, it is, taking a skin of an animal and preserving it and putting it onto a form. I specialize in doing sort of fantasy or anthropomorthic taxidermy.

Joanna Ebenstein

00:00:44.81

Part of is about challenging yourself to cut into that corpse, this taboo, dead think, in front of you that you want to cut into and you want to see what's in there. And whether you have the guts to do it.


00:00:58.61

Traditionally, women have been the memorializers and the cleaners of the corpses. Maybe there's some desire to memorialize the dead, to things eternal life, to mark their passing with care and love.


00:01:15.51

When I'm teaching the classes, I always think back to my first piece and I'm just like, I just wish I had someone telling me it'll be okay. Telling me, Divya, you ripped a foot off. That's fine. You can just sew it back on. Little things that are just slightly encouraging and even just the animal warmth of having another human there, telling you, things are going to be okay.


00:01:36.27

The animals I get for class are discards from feeder companies. They raise them to be sold as frozen food for snakes. They're just not seen as suitable for sale anymore. So I get the stuff that is literally about to go in the garbage.


00:01:57.68

Taking something that is unwanted, something seen as useless and repurposing that, I love that challenge and I like being able to do that and explore my ideas about life and death and mortality and taking this thing that is seen as garbage otherwise.


00:02:16.25

Another feeling I get too is, oh, man, I really want to make sure that you are well taken care of and I'm going to pay some tribute to you and celebrate you and whatever you represent.


00:02:30.05

There's a strange paradox to taxidermy. When I started buying taxidermy for my space and installing it, I remember thinking to myself, it really adds life for a room. There's this illusion of life that you get from good or bad in just the right way, taxidermy that defies explanation, I think.


00:02:49.73

One of my favorites from today was the wedding cake topper. He's using death to really celebrate life. How wonderful is this? Anything is a better fate than ending up in the garbage. You're being appreciated by all these people.


00:03:07.05

Death is all around us. It happens everyday. It's a big part of life and there's a way to stay reminded of that, without seeing it as this other gross, nasty thing, to embrace it and make your life better.