Collecting beetles or butterflies can be viewed as an innocent hobby; a simple fascination with insect life. In another worldview its the obsessive hobby of the lonely, of those who crave god-like control over something in their world. Cultural references like John Fowles’ novel The Collector haven’t done much to steer perceptions away from the latter, and it’s these perception that give this brilliantly creative campaign by Peter Coulson its dark edge.
In viewing the Matcho Suba look book we become the god-like figure, staring down at the (often unwilling) subjects. Unlike pressed flowers or mounted butterflies these aren’t just echos of what they were in life – the subjects we’re collecting are still well and truly living.
It’s not just the fact that our subjects are mounted on the pages of a yellowed book that makes them part of a bizarre collection, but the curiosities that surround them: the empty coil of a shed snakeskin, stuffed birds, the skulls of small animals, all add to the mood and give the shots perspective.
If you recall Coulson’s last Matcho Suba shoot you’ll know the collection is the perfect basis for such a concept. Suba’s pieces are all about animalistic wildness. The kind a hunter could collect.
For the rest of Peter Coulson‘s intriguing campaign for Matcho Suba, click on the gallery above.
