2013/09/21

r/evolutionary narratives - associative stories from the albino/melanino animals in the State Darwin Museum at the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art

r a k e t a, a free flying free falling, interdisciplinary, collaborative institute based in Stockholm, invited us to take part in the exhibition 'Visitor #13 / Nursing Nature, Nature Nursing - footnotes in the Darwin Museum' at the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, along with an international group of artists.

Our piece is called r/evolutionary narratives - associative stories from the albino/melanino animals and consists of a printed, transparent, adhesive film mounted on the albino/melanino animals’ showcase. Our work includes a mapping of the exposed albino/melanino animals: their origins, their dates of life and death, their way into the museum. All this information and yet other linked to facts, myths, scientific ideas and stories around the exposed species have found their place in the graphic representation.


Darwin’s Tree of life evolves into a Rhizome of life - a non-hierarchic system, where inheritance occurs in all directions, vertically and laterally, with innumerable crossings and interconnections.

There is neither a beginning nor an end to the mystery of existence. In a Pattern of Thought, any point can lead to yet another, following lines of flight that lead far away from the initial point of randomness.

By following and cultivating the imaginary with an open attitude, and freely connect facts, myths and fiction, new associative narrations form.

Two black wolves in Moscow can take us on an imaginary journey far away from their home in the Darwin museum. Their tales of historical events, scientific ideas, geographic localities and personal destinies form a complex cartography. As old fairy tales and myths served a mission in an unenlightened society, these new narrations open for interpretations into a present reality, and the dichotomy linked to valuation of diversity and otherness.




Some pics from the opening: B+M of 70°N together with the r a k e t a team, the State Darwin team, museum director Anna Klukina, counsellor for cultural affairs at Sweden’s embassy in Moscow Mårten Frankby, and visitors.