Love this beautiful series of pictures. Looking at them makes me think of the time I spent photographing the elk hunt in Kremmling, Colorado. The content of this project, however, carries a very different message.
From the artist’s statement: Within the last few years, the number of Polish hunters going out for safari has been constantly growing. Not everybody can afford this expensive hobby and not everybody can be a professional hunter. Jewelers, petrol station owners, businessmen and even bakers head to Namibia, Tanzania or Kamchatka to search for trophies. The only key is money.
Every hunter’s dream is to shoot down the big five: lion, elephant, buffalo, rhinoceros and leopard. Such expensive wish costs up to few dozen thousands Euro … Once the big five are dead, hunters prepare the place on their walls to fill them with trophies. These private exhibits remind of a strange paradise for all kinds of animals. This is the only place where an antelope can exist next to a lion without having fear of being killed. Because the [antelope] has already been killed …
Nobody likes taxidermists. Ecologists consider them to be animal killers and say the profession is unethical. People prefer to think that they don’t exist at all. Only hunters understand them, and not only as their clients. They share the same passion for animals. A passion of chasing, killing and adoration.
From “Life After Death”
Visit artist's site: rafalmilach.com
Posted April 25th, 2013
