Kansas Ice Storm, 2017
No Real Distance, 2016
No real distance explores the human connection to the bodies of animals. This video is a reflection of my own desire and longing; an echo of loss and distant memories. No real distance offers insight into the way we view, understand, and deal with death. It begins with a discussion of lifeless animals: how we come to view and understand death through them and how we treat their corpses as something to avoid hitting on the road, or something of curiosity and beauty.
Fascination with animal death stems from the way animal bodies allow us study to the stories of nonliving while still permitting us to avoid looking inward at our own mortality.
According to Poliquin, “Storytelling is an important component of all encounters with taxidermy and, for that matter, most encounters with nature. By storytelling, I mean human interpretation and the creation of significance: the way we pull pieces of the world into meaning and eloquent shapes” (8). No real distance weaves the stories of death and ritual together connecting memories into “eloquent shapes” as it searches for significance.
Tiffany Deater and Jarrod Hagadorn 