Zoo as metaphor 2  | catalogue p.21

Creator’s Note 

Man Mei-to

I’ve always had a habit of collecting objects and containers, and the fallen, cut-off, and recycled residues of bodies. But I merely collected them, and never embalmed what I collected and turned them into specimens, nor put them on display. The first specimen I created was for a prop for independent film Season of the End, and although it was just prop making, I didn’t stint on it at all. We turned everyday Hong Kong objects that are about to be lost or abandoned into specimens: hand-carved wooden signages from old shops, cotton trees and flowers cut down or transplanted after being deemed hazardous by district legislators, cast-off locks… etc. It was the sense of disappearing objects that we captured. 

When I took up the position of specimen-collector once again, I had to come to terms with how best to handle animal corpses. A while ago, my cat’s bodily functions were beginning to decline because of old age, and near death, the strong, corpse-like stench that came from its mouth grew putrid. Whenever we feel melancholy and exhausted, every second of the day, our bodies begin to transform, dissolve, even start to fester. The stench of putrification still lingers in my memory. As last, his body was buried, so that he could be transformed to nurture the soil, and let plants grow well. The cycle of eating, excreting and turning feces into nutrients is a normal and perfect sustainable system. But what about now? Do we tend to ritualize everything in order to cover up any worry or fear? 

Collecting dregs of water found out-of-doors in the city, letting bacteria manifest in the bottle and knot themselves together. Organisms and animals are stored in ice-cold glass bottles, in the sharp sting of antiseptic, bodies entwined. Their bodies grow bizarre, turning pale and colourless, scarred, swollen, pustule-filled. Is this normal> Have you ever paid attention to it? In that space, can you still smell the odour of their bodies? Can you still remember their final throes?