For the second week of this brief, leading up to the final presentation, I focussed on the further development of the fish silhouettes and their role in re-cataloguing the original set. The discussion from the Week 5 tutorial had touched on ideas of a “bastardisation” of the set (specifically in response to the collaged fish experiment) – which had originated from this idea of questioning the white, colonial gaze of these zoological illustrations, and the fact that they are legitimised by their “discovery”.
An article from the New Scientist expands on this, in relation to one Samuel Fallour, who was stationed in the seat of the Dutch East India Company on the Indonesian island of Ambon in the 18th century, and was a former soldier who painted “exotic” fish and crustaceans and sold these illustrations to European merchants. The article describes how Fallour exaggerated the colours of fish arbitrarily and added non existent details.
“They were right to be sceptical. “Fallours applied colour, more often than not, in a totally arbitrary fashion,” says Pietsche. For example, he deceptively painted this false stonefish (37), which is normally drab in colour, in vivid reds, yellows and blues.”
Anon, 2010. The Fantasy Fish of Samuel Fallours. New Scientist. Available at: https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/fallours-fish/?fbclid=IwAR1IdGLG3VGcbIiwXPSnXLyADucWrP9r-Hc5u00x7aIaa0_nEcTpZivL3-g [Accessed November 2, 2021].
While I was not able to find specific evidence that Garett engaged in this kind of depiction, I was interested in using the new catalogue to comment on this idea of discovery and its legitimacy, as well as the subjective view of the artist. Building on my interests from the previous week, these were they key points of investigation that I wanted to explore:
1. presenting the ‘slide’
2. rethinking specimen sheets
3. legitimacy of colonial ‘discovery’
4. image descriptions
I decided to create a flip book of the linework fish from the previous week, with each fish split into three parts: head, body and tail, accompanied by a vague corresponding image description. The idea was to allow users to flip through the “slides” and mix and match the fish to create new, non-existent combinations and corresponding captions. Based on this, users were invited to draw their new “discovery” on blank sheets provided in the book and fill in details as they saw fit.
The book was titled ‘One Thousand Polynesian Fish’, as it is possible to create up to 1000 different fish from the various moving parts.
