PROJECT TITLE
‘An alternative to death'
A multidimensional exploration of illustrations role with the natural history museum
'An alternative to death' is a illustrative research project that adopts multiple design strategies to convey a better understanding of the visual history of animal death, explores new materials and methods within the field of illustration and raises ethical questions about how we display animals in museum settings.
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Animal death is a subject that has been downplayed throughout history. It has been seen as a necessary evil in the search for knowledge, or as a natural aspect of human survival. Within the natural history museum animals have been altered into visual representations of their living selves, while the fact that these renditions of life; hold nothing but death, have been mostly ignored.
Now that we are starting to understand that protecting living animals as well as ethically sourcing dead ones is vital to their survival, we must also start to explore and implement new technology and materials as alternatives to those historically linked to physical death.
This project aims to highlight how multidimensional illustration can be used as a tool when displaying animals, both dead and alive, within the natural history museum.
