Bengal Tiger

This image is immediately arresting – the bright orange and black stripes of this Bengal tiger center-frame prominent against the white sheets of ice that surround it. The glass box that encases it then emerges, along with the other creates center-left and bottom-right – could they be penguins? – and we realize that this is an artificial scene. Seunggu describes the context – a winter festival in South Korea where water is sprayed to freeze the trees, and this stuffed museum tiger stands as the main attraction – a mise-en-scène for tourists to enjoy, based on an old local story. Photographed in this context it describes a gloomy reality, this rare and endangered animal pulled out of its natural habitat and confined to a glass box, symbolic perhaps of the way we humans have pushed it to the edge of extinction through poaching and destruction of its forests and grasslands. It roars in rage and helplessness, preserved only for our enjoyment.
By Life Framer