The local news and cultural happenings we followed this week—and what we’re up to this weekend.

Yet another take on cabinets of curiosities. During the four-month run of Ravishing Beasts—our feature exhibit on taxidermy—the blog looked at how the design world is reinterpreting the natural world. You’d be hard-pressed to open a shelter mag these days without finding some reference to this trend, or something about creating off-beat vignettes that go beyond books and vases and into the slightly macabre. An image of Patch NYC’s vignette from the French edition of Marie Claire magazine is pictured left. (Poppytalk)

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Who knew an exhibit on taxidermy would be such a hit?

As much as we loved the ideas explored in Ravishing Beasts, and the opportunity to reveal all the animals and species we’d been hoarding in our basement for decades, we were surprised by the crowds and media interest it sustained these past few months (some of the press coverage is linked here). Credit guest curator Rachel Poliquin for seeing beyond the stale narratives of taxidermy—hunting, conquest, decay—and telling a contemporary, even surprising, story. In so many ways, she’s given this strange, disparate collection an afterlife.

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Ravishing Beasts, MOV’s latest exhibit, explores all-matters taxidermy—from its colonial past to its once-prominent role in museums to its present-day revival in design. In conversation with MOV, curator Rachel Poliquin (pictured left) discusses how the show came to be, what museums should do with their taxidermy collections now, and the rather sad stuffed fox she calls her own.

How did you first become interested in taxidermy?
It was at the Natural History Museum in London. I noticed some small brown signs throughout the public galleries that said: “These animals are from our historical collections and many are from the nineteenth century. As a result, many are old and shabby and may not offer as realistic a presentation of the animals as contemporary taxidermy could offer, but we feel it is more responsible to rely on these collections than to collect new animals.” It was the first time that I’d ever thought about taxidermy. The signs made me wonder what sort of things these animals were, lingering from another era. They once had been valued, and now they were being dismissed as something less, something lacking, something dingy—both physically and ethically. In other words, my interest in taxidermy started from a point of nostalgia and not from an interest in hunting culture, which is what most people think about when they think about taxidermy.

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Previous posts have discussed the revival of taxidermy in contemporary art and design. Some interpretations meander far from traditional definitions of taxidermy, only referencing animals conceptually.

We recently learned of local designer Daniel Planko’s whimical, head trophy-inspired sculptures, created from recycled furniture and accessories. Antlers are fashioned from hooks; noses from tapered sofa legs. Called the Rewilderness series, each head trophy is one-of-a-kind original—perhaps the only quality they share with the animal variety. Click here for more on Planko’s design practice.

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Tomorrow night marks the opening of our latest exhibit, Ravishing Beasts. Long time coming. Most exhibits take years to plan and execute. In a way, this one has taken decades. Some of the animals and specimens on view haven’t been on public display in half a century; others were acquired and have remained in storage ever since. Credit our guest curator Rachel Poliquin for bringing new life to this historic, eclectic collection. Ravishing Beasts features some 110 species, representing two-thirds of MOV’s natural-history collection. The opening party starts tomorrow at 7 p.m. For details and tickets, click here.

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Last weekend, MOV participated at IDSwest and our booth featured animals from our upcoming exhibit Ravishing Beasts. Specifically: a vole, a snow owl, and a dog by the name of Lucky—all three of them taxidermied.

We’d prepped for possible blow back (”Displaying a stuffed dog? Are you out of your mind?!”), and while there was a bit of that, more often there were double takes followed by incredible conversations, ranging from animal rights to the Museum’s new vision and how Ravishing Beasts fits within it. What a time.

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Mark your Outlook calendar or iPhone or whatever you’re using these days: Amanda Gibbs, MOV’s director of audience engagement, is speaking at the opening night event of the Interior Design Show West (better known as IDSwest). It’s happening Thursday, September 17 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Doors open at 6 p.m., Gibbs talks shortly thereafter, and then there’s a special edition of Pecha Kucha happening at 7:15 p.m. The lineup includes Nancy and Niels Bendtsen of Inform Interiors and Bensen-furniture fame, architect Bruce Haden of Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden, and Todd MacAllen of Molo Design (MacAllen and design partner Stephanie Forsythe were the only Canadians featured in 10 X 10_2, Phaidon’s round up of the world’s most exceptional emerging architects). Tickets to the event go for $15 and can be purchased on the night of, or online here. Good deal.

IDSwest runs until September 20. Be sure to stop the MOV booth for a preview of Ravishing Beasts and to learn about our fall/winter program schedule.

We’re in the final stages of acquiring objects for Ravishing Beasts, our featured exhibit on taxidermy and, more broadly, on MOV’s history of collecting. The exhibit opens October 22; more details are linked here.

The subject matter makes for interesting shipments, each one more unusual, random, quirky, and politically charged than the next. Recently arrived is a gopher diaorama from the wilds of Torrington, Alberta (pop. 200+). The town isn’t as well known as its RV-sized “Torrington Gopher Hole Museum,” which presents 71 stuffed gophers arranged in anthropomorphic scenes (one example is pictured). Imagine: Gopher as cowboy; gopher as farmer; gopher as bank robber. The one featured in Ravishing Beasts is dressed as a tourist—complete with toque, luggage, and a map of Canada—and was created from Torrington’s cache of frozen gophers.

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We’re about to dramatically shift gears here: Velo-City closes September 7; on October 22, Ravishing Beasts opens. The Museum goes from a look at local cycling culture to exploring the history and present-day revival of taxidermy. An unlikely follow up, you might say. Velo-City was a strong example of the Museum’s new direction and, to our minds, prescient; Ravishing Beasts explores our past, fitting elements of our collection into a contemporary context. The exhibit features taxidermy and other items from our natural history collection that have not been on public display since the Museum moved to its current location in 1968. Expect an eclectic and dramatic round up of exotic and local species alongside taxidermy-influenced artwork by artists like Vancouver’s George Vergette.  Also expect interesting debate about the past, present, and future course of the Museum of Vancouver—and the changing nature of museum collecting in general—in the months ahead.

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