Video Work
The extinction of the Tasmanian Tiger, or thylacine, has remained a profound source of fascination and sadness for Wendy Maruyama since childhood, after first encountering archival nature footage of the animal in elementary school. The haunting quality of those early film images continued to resonate throughout her life and ultimately became the conceptual foundation for this work.
Created for a joint exhibition of Australian and American furniture makers shortly after Maruyama’s visit to Hobart, Tasmania, the piece transforms the cabinet form into a kind of butsudan—a traditional Japanese Buddhist shrine intended for remembrance and reverence. Here, the structure functions as a memorial to the vanished animal, merging personal memory, mourning, and cultural ritual.
Embedded within the work is a video montage composed of archival clips and layered imagery of the thylacine, reinforcing the tension between documentation, myth, absence, and loss. As in much of Maruyama’s work, the cabinet becomes both container and vessel: a space for contemplation, memory, and homage.
Photography by Michael Slattery.
Collection: Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.
Additional references:
Natural Worlds – Thylacine Archive
Wikipedia – Butsudan
