Kathryn Fleming

Examining the cultural institutions that have shaped human interactions and perceptions of wild animals (the circus, zoological garden, and safari park), the project Endless Forms/Endless Species endeavours to imagine a new era of wildlife parks. Within the first of these prototype parks, animal habitats have been specifically designed to re-enforce the re-adaptation and re-purposing of existing evolutionary genetic mutations of new species that have been engineered specifically (evolved through synthetic biology and artificial selection) for life in this post-industrial wilderness. Visiting such an ‘Evolutionary Development Park’ would offer the public a chance to embrace modern naturalism through a series of encounters with new species. Invited to become explorers in a new age of discovery, visitors could consider the impact that direct contact and observation of wildlife has upon the human imagination.

This project will take the form of several full-scale dioramas that illustrate new ecologies at work within this prototype park. Learning the craft of taxidermy and various techniques used in scientific model-making has enabled me to utilise these methodologies to present the audience with a picture of reality that convincingly conflates the potential of science with the possibilities of fiction. The aesthetics of these plants and animals, as well as their clever re-adaptations and neo-ecologies, should therefore appear wonderfully fantastic, but also not beyond what is possible. Grounding the anatomy of these new designer organisms in existing morphology (a branch of biology dealing with the study of the evolution of form and structure within organisms and their specific features), Endless Forms/Endless Species  is a means of speculative morphogenesis that should raise awareness of the remarkable adaptations already existing within ecologies, but also prompt viewers to question what types of experiences could be created by involving technology, human desire and imagination in the future of evolution. To that degree, my project is meant to educate the audience about ecological and evolutionary mechanisms while also inviting them to consider what type of science could make our experience of the world more intensely marvelous, and make us even more amazed by the nature in which we will continue to evolve.