This publication accompanies Beasts, a photographic series by Irish artist Gerard Byrne made in 2018 within the Biologiska Museet in Stockholm.

The book presents a text by the artist alongside reproductions of black-and-white silver gelatin and colour photographs that explore the uneasy tension between stillness, representation, and the idea of animation within photographic practice.

The Beasts images were produced inside a historic 360° diorama of Nordic wilderness, where taxidermied animals frozen in an early museum setting blur the distinction between object, image, and time. Byrne’s work reflects on the museum’s daylight-dependent conditions and parallels this with the mechanics of the photographic apparatus itself.

The publication was issued in connection with the exhibition Upon all the living and the dead. at Secession in Vienna in 2019 and forms part of Byrne’s broader engagement with film, photography, and installation over the past decade.