Animal crackers – uncanny show at Last Tuesday Society

‘Flying’ dog exhibit at the shop-cum-gallery. Photograph: The Last Tuesday Society

Where in London might you get close to a stuffed polar bear or a ‘Fiji mermaid’? The answer is the Mare Street shop/museum in Hackney’s Last Tuesday Society.

The cluttered space houses a collection of somewhat retro animal-related items including antique taxidermy, framed insects and unusual anatomical specimens – the ‘Fiji mermaid’ is in fact a mixture of monkey, fish and papier mâché.
The space is designed to recreate a seventeenth century ‘cabinet of curiosities’.

“Noblemen and scholars would have these to describe and define their dominion over the land and show how brainy they were,” explains manager Vadim Kosmos. “It was the time of the great explorers, and they’d all come back with stuff and put it in a big room. They’d have a crocodile hung from the ceiling, or a turtle shell.”

Eventually, many of these collections became the foundations of modern zoological collections – for example, collector and physician Hans Sloane’s items became part of the Natural History Museum.

But Kosmos explains that the Society’s collection has attractions that conventional museums can’t match.

It includes some unusual items: “There are shrunken heads, conjoined animals and birth defect animals – things you’d never see in a museum normally.”

The collection’s intimate layout is also part of its appeal: “You can get really close, much closer than people do in an ordinary museum, because it’s so compact and crowded – you’re literally nose to nose with something in there.”

“It’s an immersive museum – you’re going into another world with this strange jumble of items, of freaks and fantasies.”

The Society hosts events related to its collection, including a recent bat diorama workshop and regular mouse taxidermy classes. It also runs animal-themed fancy dress parties, with a portion of ticket proceeds going to wildlife charities.