Composed and lit in the style of the masters of Mannerist and Baroque painting, the imagery of Memento Exstingui proposes a radical shift in the paradigm of the genre. The human skull of the Vanitas or Memento Mori painting is substituted by an animal one. The viewers are invited to review their existential questioning beyond the confines of their own individual destiny and to embrace their position within the natural world. All the skulls featured belong to animals on the Red List of Threatened Species. The title of the series, Memento Exstingui, offers an insight into the essay's symbolic approach. It paraphrases Memento Mori and it shifts the focus to the more holistic existential concern of extinction, open in the latin to be interpreted as the loss of the individual or of a whole species. Memento Exstingui was shot in collaboration with the Powell-Cotton Museum. The images were taken in a temporary studio set up on the museum’s premises and feature specimens from the Edwardian collection. As customary in the Vanitas genre skulls are juxtaposed to objects symbolising transience, delusions, and the ephemeral nature of existence. The series was created as a meditation on the changing perception of the place of mankind within nature and our close relation to fellow animal life. The pictorial overall quality of the images belies formidable photographic detail and they have been created to be viewed and appreciated in very large print format.

All Images Copyright Michele Turriani 2024. All Rights Reserved.