Nothing Is Certain Except Death and Taxidermy

Brittany Menjivar stuffs herself with trivia on the art of museum dioramas.

By Brittany MenjivarDecember 5, 2024

REFRAMING DIORAMAS: THE ART OF PRESERVING WILDERNESS, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, September 15, 2024–September 15, 2025.

I don’t think you understand how much I love animal dioramas. As a child growing up just a hop, skip, and jump away from Washington, DC, I constantly begged my parents to take me to the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian. I spent hours staring at the wonders in the Kenneth E. Behring Family Hall of Mammals, flexing my linguistic prowess by reading every single description. Years later, this exhibition would become the subject of my college admissions essay—“The scimitar-horned oryxes were my unicorns; I fantasized about them sprinting across the savannah with ecstatic glee,” I wrote. Needless to say, when I heard that Los Angeles’s own Natural History Museum was reopening a diorama hall that had been closed for 30 years and turning it into a meditation on the art of the animal diorama itself, I cleared my schedule. Rain be darned; I was going to spend my final moments in town before the holiday reveling in the beauty of taxidermy.

I arrived at Reframing Dioramas: The Art of Preserving Wilderness around 3:00 p.m.—just in time for the free admission deal that the museum offers L.A. residents on weekday afternoons. Entering the room, I spied a series of birds frozen in flight overhead and followed their path to a display of black-backed jackals. My intellectual journey began. The specimens, which included a leaping kangaroo, a prowling tiger, and yes, my beloved oryx, were striking; just inches away behind glass, their size and lifelike visages captured the imagination. Yet I was even more riveted by the lore behind this spectacle. Did you know that dioramas often combine specimens from different decades—that a topi from the 1920s and a warthog from the 1960s might find themselves sharing a watering hole? That creators plan out dioramas ahead of time using maquettes before designing their full-scale scenes, which also require them to paint detailed murals and craft props? That zoos often donate deceased animal remains to museums so that they can continue promoting a love for wildlife amidst the public, even in death? That certain museums briefly jazzed up dioramas with animatronics in the 1980s and ’90s? I certainly didn’t, but thanks to the exhibition’s informative plaques, I now have enough fun facts to last me at least three dinner parties.

For those less inclined to read blocks of text, the exhibition boasts some AV components, including a video outlining the rather lengthy taxidermy process. The museum took great care to emphasize taxidermy as an underappreciated art form that coexists with a deep love and respect for animals. My curiosity, admittedly, was piqued. If I drop out of literary society to open my own taxidermy practice down the road, don’t act surprised!

In addition to revitalizing old dioramas that had lain dormant, Reframing Dioramas incorporates new, innovative dioramas designed by local artists, all of which play with more experimental modes of visual storytelling. Typically, a sign explained, dioramas depict idyllic vistas to emphasize the importance of conversation, as if declaring, “This is what we stand to lose.” In their work Special Species: A Delicate Moment in Time, Yesenia Prieto, Joel Fernando, and Jason Chang put a surreal spin on this theme by illuminating a landscape with brilliant colors. Lauren Schoth’s The Ever-Changing Flow takes a different approach, portraying the past rather than the present: two owls looking over the L.A. River as it appeared in its heyday, teeming with biodiversity. I was most moved by Saul Becker’s A Peculiar Garden, which swapped out idealism for a postapocalyptic orange sky and wasteland-like backdrop—a sober, wordless warning.

The animals in Reframing Dioramas might have died years ago, but the lessons they impart on us are timeless. Staring into the glass cases, we see not only the mammals’ struggles for survival but also our own reflections. This is the circle of life telling its own story.

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Photo by contributor.

LARB Short Takes live event reviews are published in partnership with the nonprofit Online Journalism Project and the Independent Review Crew.