At first glance this container seems a makeshift diorama, perhaps of a brackish estuarine scene. On closer inspection, the creatures are weird. If you possess some knowledge of arthropod taxonomy, you’ll notice the mash-ups. The carapace of one type of crab is mixed with the legs of a different species, a different genus. The same is true for the others – each combines two different insects or crustaceans. To attach a dead human torso to a horse body to make a centaur would be seriously gross. But how less unnatural is it to combine invertebrates in the same way?
It’s almost like biological engineering, or Frankenstein-ing. But not really. For though we humans have practically invented new life through science, we will never create beings with the same vivacity as the naturally evolved. Nor even in this feeble combination of specimens I’ve collected do these creations come close to breathing, unless in the imagination.
