Similar data from other young sharks is beginning to give scientists a picture of how these animals use the ocean and how people could improve conservation efforts, according to Kochevar. There is little question that the great white’s brief stay at the Monterey Bay Aquarium has helped stoke public support for shark research and conservation, he adds. Not long ago, the aquarium’s trustees decided to increase their shark research budget by half a million dollars. Hirst has made a miniature version of The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living for the Miniature Museum in the Netherlands. In this case, he put a guppy in a box (10 × 3.5 × 5 centimetres) filled with formaldehyde. [16] It is completely isolated from its natural setting. Instead of being in motion, in the water, we see it completely frozen and preserved. For most, it may be the first time we have come so close to a shark, with many of us only seeing them on television or perhaps at an aquarium. Here we have a direct experience of the shark, not filtered through any media. Thus we are forced to consider the shark in a new and different context and re-evaluate how we perceive the animal. In Hirst’s piece, we come face to face with the reality and physicality of this familiar image and are forced to consider it in a new setting.

Tate. " 'Mother and Child (Divided)', Damien Hirst, exhibition copy 2007 (original 1993)". Tate . Retrieved 18 June 2022. Those lessons bore fruit in August 2004, when a commercial halibut fisherman caught a young, five-foot long female great white in the waters off Huntington Beach. After being held in the Malibu pen for three weeks, she was moved to the aquarium for display. Over the next six months, nearly one million people came to see her. “She was an incredible ambassador for white sharks and shark conservation,” says Kochevar. Hirst has made other works subsequently which also feature a preserved shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine: The Immortal [10] (a great white shark, 2005), Wrath of God [11] (2005), Death Explained [12] (the shark is split in two, lengthwise, 2007), Death Denied [13] (2008), The Kingdom [14] (2008) and Leviathan (a basking shark, 2010) [1].Controversially, Hirst hired an Australian shark hunter to catch the big fish, asking him to capture “something big enough to eat you.” Hirst also plays on the fear response, deliberately displaying the shark with its mouth wide open, and sharp teeth visible. Preserving it in formaldehyde allows the shark to stay remarkably well preserved as if actually still alive. Akbar, Arifa. "A formaldehyde frenzy as buyers snap up Hirst works", The Independent, 16 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008. Icon-Icon (18 May 2017). "Damien Hirst's Golden Calf: a Complex and Controversial Work of Art". ICON-ICON . Retrieved 18 June 2022.

a b Smith, Roberta (16 October 2007). "Just When You Thought It Was Safe". The New York Times . Retrieved 16 October 2007. The researchers say the tag showed that after being released, the shark swam more than 100 miles offshore and to depths of greater than 800 feet. “It’s clear she survived and thrived,” says Kochevar, adding that the shark first swam several hundred miles south along the California coast, “then took a hard right and headed offshore for a while, then returned to the coast. … There’s no question that she was hunting and feeding on her own.” a b c d e f g h i j Vogel, Carol "Swimming with famous dead sharks,2 The New York Times, 1 October 2006. Retrieved 23 February 2007 In Monterey, however, biologists working on the aquarium’s shark conservation and ecology project believed it was possible for a great white to survive — and thrive — in one of the facility’s giant display tanks. They also believed that letting the public see these magnificent hunters up close could pay big dividends for their efforts to protect sharks, which are under increasing threat. Created in 1991 by Damien Hirst, entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is an artwork that consists of a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine.Demonised in the classic 1970s novel and film, Jaws, there can be few creatures that hold such fear and respect. Suddenly, a large crescent shaped tail flashed only inches before my facemask and a rough object momentarily brushed my belly – a shark! Critics have also questioned the ethics of the part of Hirst's oeuvre that involves dead animals. One estimate puts the number of creatures killed for Hirst's pieces at 913,450, including animals and insects. [24] Most sharks need to swim continuously to receive oxygen through their gill slits to survive, however some species, including whitetips, have muscles that pump water through their gills, enabling them to rest. Sharks in British waters In keeping with the piece's title, the shark is simultaneously life and death incarnate in a way you don't quite grasp until you see it, suspended and silent, in its tank. It gives the innately demonic urge to live a demonic, deathlike form. [1] Decay and replacement [ edit ]