'Saved by Science'

Download Release

2006

Over the course of a year, Australian artist, Justine Cooper captured the behind the scenes storage areas of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Using a vintage wood 4x5 camera, Cooper shares rare glimpses into their massive housed collections and reveals a trail of scientific desire that reaches back into the 19th century and across the 4 corners of the Earth. Cooper deftly wended her way from basement to attic, peering into thousands of vats, drawers, corners and cupboards along the way to produce this vivid series of photographs. Her access was unprecedented as the first and only artist-in-residence at the Museum in its almost 150 year history.

“Accessing the stored collections was a fantastic journey into the physical spaces of a Natural History Museum where the imaginable and unimaginable reside side by side. But the collections also function as a link between the past, present and future, representing a passage from the 19th century institution to the 21st century one. While the creamy-gray elephant bones in the Victorian attic soften from the heat and light, the stainless steel tanks containing the cryogenic collection of frozen tissue samples, bar-coded and nitrogen cooled, are made to last an eternity. The scientific usefulness of a collection may shift, but its legacy remains, as does the potential for future relevance. Beyond the science, the historical and contemporary motivations for collecting, preserving, cataloging and systematizing the natural world ultimately say more about Homo sapiens than any of the species represented in these vast holdings. Behind the public face of the museum is a complex web of science, history and human desire – across geographical space and over time. Natural history collections intertwine monetary, scientific and historical value. So is it knowledge, ownership, or curiosity that drives us to collect? Are we by nature obsessive, preservationist, and/or sentimental? In the end, I was drawn to how the seemingly simple collecting and ordering of nature, albeit on a grand scale, represents a multi-faceted engagement with both a scientific and social space.” J.C