Jerboa Jerboa's Enchantments cost most dear, 2020 Jazmina Cininas

Jerboa Jerboa's Enchantments cost most dear, 2020

Jazmina Cininas

Reduction Linocut

Edition Number: A/P (Artist Proof) 

38cm x 38cm

In the Philippe Mora spoof from 1987, "Howling III: The Marsupials", an endangered race of were-thylacines is discovered in the Australian wilderness. Mora blurs biology and combines clichéd European werewolf mythology with the shameful environmental legacy embodied by the Tasmanian tiger (aka marsupial wolf), utilising the parallel demonisation and persecution of the two animals in order to cast the lead lycanthrope, Jerboa Jerboa, in a sympathetic light. The simultaneous wonder and fear inspired by the discovery of the were-thylacines reverberates with reports circulating in the Early Modern era of strange races—such as the dog-headed Cynocephali—that European explorers brought back with them from new worlds. The Tasmanian Tiger, with its Latin name Thylacinus cynocephalus, further embeds Jerboa in the legends of dog-headed races from earlier centuries. The plants include a number of species now extinct to Tasmania, including is the Southern Shepherd's Hook or Ballantina. Like the Tasmanian Tiger, it was a victim to introduced sheep industries.

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