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Creation/Research Support
The unusual death of a mallard

This project owes its inspiration to a mallard, a collection item at the Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam. In 1995, a male mallard died of hitting the glass wall of the newly built glazed pavilion of the museum. This accident attracted another male wild duck, and it “raped” the corpse of the dead mallard. This event lasted 75 minutes. Witnessing the entire process, the museum director Kees Moeliker turned the dead mallard into a specimen and exhibited it in the museum. He also wrote an academic report titled “The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos,” which earned him the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize in Biology. This project is intended to explore how museums use technology to display animals’ bodies/memories and examine the ethical issues concerning the tools adopted by museums such as specimen production, 3D scanning in digital archiving, and thermal imaging for biology.

CREATORS

HSU Che-Yu

An art practitioner and a graduate of the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts, Tainan National University of the Arts, HSU Che-Yu (b. 1985) is undertaking a two-year post academic residency program at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK).

CHEN Wan-Yin

A writer and a graduate of the Graduate Institute of Animation and Film Art, Tainan National University of the Arts, CHEN Wan-Yin (b. 1988) is enrolled in the Ph.D. program of Art History and Cultural Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.