The Rabbit Always Dies
Book and short film, estimated release 2024
An experimental documentary that reveals the complex history of pregnancy tests from the 1930s-60s which relied on the use of live frogs and rabbits.
This work lives two parallel lives, as an 80-page risograph printed artist book and a short film that incorporates risograph animation and historical images.
The frames of the animation are spread across the variable edition. The animation is done at 12 frames a second. Each book contains 1/4th of the frames, so though every book contains images from every second of animation, they do not contain all the same frames. As each page could be one of four options, each book in the edition is likely to have a slightly different recombination of images.
Pages from the book
A segment of animation
The Frogs and Their Friends
A zine and loop of animation. A small preview of the full book. A group of animals used for medical research enjoy a very human night out.
To Purchase a zine Venmo $5 to Oona-Taper-1. In the description include "frogs" and your address.
Some places to read more about the ideas in this book:
Rabbits as pregnancy tests
The Hogben test: frogs as pregnancy tests
Kean, Sam (22 August 2017). "The Birds, the Bees, and the Froggies".
Chytridiomycosis and its relationship to the Hogben Test
Cormier, Zoe. "How a pregnancy test caused a catastrophe for frogs". BBC Earth.
An introduction to analyzing the implications of the ways we represent animals, including looking at cartoons and children's toys.
Berger, John. Why Look at animals