This makes me feel Afraid
The Severed Tail (2022)
At the Venice Biennale in 2022, one particularly intriguing exhibition was Marianna Simnett’s installation, “The Severed Tail”. This explores the tail as a link between animals and humans, bringing us back to our basics, or our “animal selves”. She reclaims this idea with film showing graphic and extreme fetish and play.
At the Venice Biennale in 2022, one particularly intriguing exhibition was Marianna Simnett’s installation, “The Severed Tail”. This explores the tail as a link between animals and humans, bringing us back to our basics, or our “animal selves”. She reclaims this idea with film showing graphic and extreme fetish and play.
Contributor notes
What is surprising, refreshing, most interesting?
The most interesting thing about this exhibit is the way that it draws people in and surprises them, eliciting negative responses from everyone. The exhibit was located in a separate room within the Biennale Arsenale space, closed off by a red curtain. But what turns people's eyes, at least my own, was a small little tail peaking out from under, making one curious as to what is inside. Once you open the curtain, the tail expands into a giant one snaking through a dark room with the film playing on several screens, and audience members can sit on the tail within a dark room. The tail itself, as the namesake of the exhibition, is the largest pull, but really amplifies the grotesque and intimate nature of the film.
Key Insights? What can we learn from this?
From this we can learn how to activate a space, and the importance of how audiences experience an exhibit. Rather than just showing the film in a dark room, the exhibit engages viewers, immediately drawing them in and playing off the natural human instinct of curiosity. Then, when inside, they hold focus by making the exhibit interactive and immersing viewers in the experience of the film with the furry tail that represents the tails that we lost through evolution as well as the controversial practice of animal tail docking.