Reliquary Cabinet for a Disappearing Species - Eastern Quoll,

Tasmanian eucalypt, metal containers, feathers, fur, leaves, earth and rock, 2001, with drawings by John Wolseley, 2001, (161 x 47 x 38cm)

 

This cabinet is one of 2 made originally for the exhibition, Tracing the Wallace Line by John Wolseley in 2001.

This exhibition considered the idea of the parallel evolution of plants and animals on each side of the Wallace Line, a biogeograhical boundary delineating the differing faunas of the eastern and western regions of the Indonesian Archipelago

Like Alfred Russel Wallace, John Wolseley travelled extensively through Indonesia documenting the differences and correspondences in the flora and fauna.

The concept for the cabinets was developed whilst drawing plant specimens in a Herbarium in Java, where Wolseley speculated if there would become a time when much of what remains in the natural world will be found only in the cabinets of museums

Wolseley commissioned Linda Fredheim to design and make a pair of cabinets to contain specimens "in memory of lost species", one for each side of the Wallace line. Each of the cabinets is made up of layers of specimens held in metal collecting boxes with the top of the cabinet containing a casket-like collection of specimens and drawings which can be glimpsed through the door handle/peephole.

Collection John Wolseley