Ulrika Gunnarsdotter

Slideshow for the lions. 1997, Gothenburg Museum of Natural History.

When I was studying at Valand School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg I had the opportunity to exhibit at the Gothenburg Museum of Natural History. My work consisted of my own holiday snapshots and a movie screen which I put up for an audience of four stuffed lions, where a series of slides with pictures from the outside world were shown to their observant gazes. They looked perpetually interested. The audience saw the lions watching the slides. This inverted scenario perhaps made the onlooker aware of the human being and the absurdity of the natural historian’s task.

It was fun to pinpoint what kind of institution the museum was. Museums were created to show the world to people. Now the world was being shown to animals. The lions were a faithful audience. This prompted a question – who was a participant and who was the audience in relation to this work of art?