Gettmann's Education Approach to Otters - Nemo & His Relatives Part IV

Dr. Wolfgang Gettmann’s educational approach: 

Natural Science as part of Humanities helps change human relation to otters

Respectfully submitted and written by Béatrice Dumiche

The quest for a reasonable agreement between man and nature based on the Enlightenment’s tolerant philosophy became more obvious in the section dedicated to Germany, which could be considered Gettmann’s personal contribution to what appeared to be a clever rethinking of the Natural History Museums’ encyclopaedic mission: it was founded on the conviction that the role of natural sciences must be revised through multidisciplinary exchanges which will help them relativize their pretension to be the ruling discipline in explaining the world wholly and definitively. They must remain open to criticism, which means that they must become more accessible and revise their pretension of superior objectivity making it difficult to question their definition openly, especially if it is supported by a hermetic language. This exhibition was clearly in favor of a conception of natural sciences that encourages generating a wider common interest while continuing to refer back to the philosophical dialogue of their origins. After more than a century of positivism, it could be supposed that the human representatives for nature have gained enough maturity to recognize their own responsibility in the arrogance and carelessness which led to the misconception of progress as exclusively being the development of industry and technology, provoking the waste of natural resources and pollution.

The exhibits documented that under the threat of increasing ecological damages, the limited status otters had been given had to be questioned. Social awareness was gradually increased and a focus was placed more and more on the importance of the resolution of environmental conflicts. So, as sustainability was revealed as being vital for the generations ahead, there was an evolution from the service of short-term anthropocentric interests to the defense of nature and wildlife through education. It appeared that they became involved by mediating missions where they advocated the needs of nature, not from an authoritarian position, but instead by using the knowledge at their disposal to create sympathy and understanding while awakening curiosity for its otherness and how it works.  Stories narrating personal experiences and symbolic items associated with them became more important than scientific discourses arguing on the behalf of an abstract objectivity which could be difficult to relate to concrete situations. The otter exhibition itself is an example of this shift in viewpoint, as it would not exist if this major change had not taken place. It is an illustration of the new scientific spirit in which research cannot be separated from communication as knowledge only makes sense when it is shared and has an effect on life in its indefinitely particular forms. Beyond sharing the necessary facts, which provided important knowledge and context, the exhibits evoking otters created a spontaneous attraction which complemented the fascination generated by the educative objects like skeletons which inspired physical respect for the living animal and its power.

Gettmann’s originality was to present the exhibits through a multidisciplinary approach for which no orthodox justification existed. It risked being disregard as ‘only’ a conglomerate of otter related items, but in fact, it was an effort to break the concept of scientific ruling by classification and discrimination and reintroduce pleasure and associative creativity. His exhibition thus represented an innovation based on a critical reflection of the past, revealing the necessity of consciously restoring the primitive affinities between men and animals which arts have historically featured more than sciences. In creating a common history based on shared experiences and emotions, even if hatred and fear, they were returning to the origin of a relationship previously deconstructed by pretended scientific objectivity. Gettmann stressed the internal epistemological revolution natural sciences have gone through, mostly unnoticed, which changed their attitude towards predators. However, this attitude shift has not been heavily documented and even now it is often difficult to find social acceptance. So, while advocating in this way in favor of otters, he also supports an active epistemology with an awareness that scientific knowledge must be reintroduced into life. Visitors were relied upon to adjust and take in the information. As there were no simple explanations or solutions offered, everybody experienced the complexity of the situation. He allowed the visitor to discover for himself that there are plenty of ways to get to know about otters and that each species and individual otter gives different access to themselves because they are living creatures, just as we are. He risked criticism by adding perspective to the scientific exhibits and perhaps noticed that their presentation required a great subtlety. These formed the framework, and to be efficiently understood had to be integrated into a much larger and long established socio-cultural and historical context with an unpredictable subconscious impact. Gettmann was aware of this challenge from the moment he conceived his presentation, which underlined that natural sciences must integrate these heteroclite elements if their discourse will have a chance to be admitted by the elites not only philosophically, but to penetrate mentalities and habits it had not originally meant to reach.

So, his approach referred to history in order to show how otters became the victims of economic interests after being persecuted due to superstitions and religious prejudices. Visitors were informed of the tremendous benefits fishermen, and poachers could make from selling even just one otter pelt at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The increasing importance of money, which took over in a rural environment where ancient superstitions reinforced by clerical practices held strong throughout the centuries, was stressed. This was illustrated through one of the most curious documents, a text from a 1920 journal called Kosmos (2/p. 49), warning against otters transmitting pocks. From our present perspective, where scientific knowledge of biology is better established, this is a striking example of complete nonsense. It demonstrates that no serious knowledge can emerge as long as the characteristics of an animal are mystified by fear and imagination, states which work only by association without any discernment for objective causalities. It reveals that human reasoning is extremely vulnerable in the relationship with predators if they are perceived as the personal incarnations of uncontrollable and changing threats if not of the Evil itself.

Through pictures and texts, Gettmann displayed with some humor the contradictions of the associations the otter has been afflicted with and which mingle all kinds of dubious beliefs to justify its eradication while he underlined how they worked together with religious convictions to delay the foundation of secure knowledge based on observation and anatomic studies. The reproduction of one of the elbow rests of the Knights seats found within the Thistle Chapel of Saint Giles Cathedral of Edinburgh is a very good example of the ambiguous historical imagery of the animal. It shows an otter eating a pair of fish and the style of its depiction could be easily associated with other mythical creatures of the Middle Ages, like dragons, despite the rather realistic carving of the fish. This reveals how mysterious the otter seemed in these times, lacking in reliable biological information as it was a mammal living in the water. Due to this misunderstanding, its status from a religious perspective remained rather unclear. It was at one point allowed by the Catholic Church to be consumed as a Lenten dish as they considered it a fish, and it was eventually related to penitence. There are a series of cookbooks from the 17th and 18th centuries providing otter recipes which sometimes describe its perceived repulsive ugliness. For example one of them begins with the piece of advice, ‘First cut off the head because it is hideous’. This used prejudices based on a subjective canon of beauty to justify its consumption as an act of contrition. The humoristic point of this very striking part of the exhibition was that it also highlighted that scientific research needed to enter this strange world which seemed to be that of an obscurantism radically opposite to its own spirit with the risk of being caught up in its weirdness. An ‘otter dinner’ organized by scientists for a meeting of their society at the end of the 19th century to discover its taste reveals that ‘experiences’ might sometimes be really adventurous and off the beaten track.

Through the above examples, Gettmann created lasting impressions dwelling on the weirdness both of these opposite points of view represented in our current state of knowledge, especially in regard to what we consider ‘scientific’. He demonstrated the ways in which science itself has evolved from irrationality and through inevitable errors and positivistic excesses as it is based on facts needing to be taught, interpreted, and related to each other. He underlined that until recent questioning and criticisms by scientists themselves of the sciences’ quests for objectivity the practice was to deny that processes and conclusions were unconsciously influenced by long-held beliefs and by reliance on particular instruments and methods as they strived for absolute truth, the goal inherited from their ambition to replace the religious dogma. His collection illustrated very efficiently how long it took before the general knowledge about otters broke from superstition and concentrated on the animal itself rather than legend. It was found that the only obstacle to developing an unprejudiced viewpoint was observation, which had been lacking. It also became clear that this evolution could not have taken place if the changes in the self-definition of natural sciences had not been relayed by the better and more democratic school education developed in the second half of the 20th century, particularly after World War II when larger numbers of the population attended secondary schools.

Thus, the well-selected exhibits documented the increasing role natural sciences played in the arising of an awareness and appreciation of global environmental concerns, including the coexistence with wildlife, at last, giving otters a chance for survival. It was shown that they were correlated with an interactive pedagogy aiming to develop critical observation through practical studies which did not continue in the practice of avoiding direct contact with the animal, and which encouraged the continued involvement of the arts. Gettmann discreetly reminded visitors that drawings have been the principal way to dispatch physiological information about animals since the Renaissance and continued to play a pivotal role in school education for a very long time as technology only became preponderant in classrooms during the last twenty years. So, the most significant item for the display of this evolution was a printed panel from the 1960’s, which highlighted that natural sciences have been taught at a larger scale and have been a part of common education while it also suggests that their perspective has become more dynamic. As in traditional drawings presenting the animal’s anatomy, the local European otter was depicted on the panel objectively to draw attention to the species’ major characteristics to facilitate its identification and classification according to biologic criteria. At the same time, details of the landscape in which it lives reveal an attempt to define it not only by its physiology but also through the way it adapts to its surroundings. This signifies the emerging interests in ecologic belongings such as habitat conservation, which oriented natural sciences in a more global societal direction.

Gettmann showed that this capital mental change also transformed the function of some of the typical artifacts associated with the animal. Taxidermy otters are no longer hunting trophies, though they are still very useful as an aid in teaching the principal physical characteristics of the animal as a tool in exploring concretely what it looks like ‘for real’. The visitor could form his own opinion as some very expressive and representative examples of the otter species were featured of which he may have had no opportunity to get a three-dimensional view before. Together with the skeletons and the skulls exhibited, these punctuated the show with reference points while the information from the IOSF map gave an overview of their repartition worldwide and helped to situate them geographically.

Concrete material was offered for optical comparisons and to highlight that natural studies cannot do without these accessories, the use of which is too often criticized as they are falsely related to animal cruelty as if they were still coming from hunting or even killed for this purpose. In this way, a nice side effect of the exhibition was that it discredited a number of modern prejudices, which could do a lot of good. It reminded visitors that critique needs to be grounded by facts first and not be allowed to be abused by impressions and conjectures. The skulls of Eurasian, Asian-Short-Clawed-Otters and sea otters help figure out some aspects of their ancestry while the whole skeletons gave a realistic idea of their different sizes. The most spectacular among those exhibited was that of a giant otter as it shaped the silhouette of the largest species, which can reach two meters. It highlighted once more the efficiency of Gettmann’s choice to combine the scientific approach of his exhibition with a scenography based on some major items appealing to the visitors’ senses and captivating the imagination. They were very attractive to children, whose curiosity they excited as they became aware of how rich the subject was. They were incited to set their own priorities of what they would like to know more about: all the documentation they could find in the exhibition was an exhortation to gather their own!

Otter News would like to sincerely thank Clare Laughran for her editing of the review.