Focus on: Koen Vanmechelen »La Biomista - Cosmopolitan Chicken Project«

The presented video places the focus on the installation »La Biomista – Cosmopolitan Chicken Project« of the artist Koen Vanmechelen, which was shown at the exhibition »Exo-Evolution«.

BY RABEA RAHMIG

Koen Vanmechelen (1965, Sint-Truiden, Belgium) is convinced that scientific facts and the creativity of art together can open up areas that science on its own is not able to research. Over the years, Vanmechelen has collaborated with geneticists and virologists in his projects. In 2010 he received an honorary doctorate for this in Hasselt in Belgian. Although he has never specialised in one artistic form of expression, he has demonstrated a very clear focus when it comes to content: biocultural diversity and identity.

His career as an artist began in 1990. With the »Cosmopolitan Chicken Project« (CCP), Koen Vanmechelen drew international attention. The aim was and remains to breed a cosmopolitan chicken. For this, he crossed chicken breeds from China, America, Russia, France, Belgium, Cuba and Senegal.

In this way, 19 hybrid generations of chickens have been created in the course of the past 25 years – and the project is not yet completed. Through the work on CCP, the artist has made interesting discoveries in cooperation with scientists: the further the generations progress, the more fertile the chickens become and the longer they live. The life expectancy of the chickens from the 19th generation has tripled in some cases.

Important are the direct effects on society

At the same time, Koen Vanmechelen’s art is very multi-faceted. He is concerned with photography, video, painting, sculptures and performances. It is important to him that his art has direct effects on society. Art for the sake of art is not his approach: “I can say that l’art pour l’art is not for me“. His four foundations, »The Walking Egg«, »Cosmogolem«, »The Cosmopolitan Research Project« and »COMBAT« make this very clear. They have direct effects on society: Vanmechelen champions, among others, children all over the world and works together with SOS Children’s Villages. »La Biomista«, his latest project, also concerns society. The exciting thing about this, he says, is the relationship between people, animals and nature. For example, he wants to explain “why the Dromedary is talking to the chicken and the chicken to the human“.

»La Biomista« is at the same time Vanmechelen’s new studio in the multicultural city of Genk, which is expected to be completed at the end of 2017. The 24 hectare piece of land with the studio, designed by Mario Botta will become the architectural embodiment of Vanmechelen’ work to date. »La Biomista« provides a new home for Vanmechelen’s »Open University Of Diversity« and its four foundations and the »Cosmopolitan Chicken Project«. Furthermore, it is intended for there also to be breeding stations for chickens and threatened races, including for black storks and wolves. La Biomista is intended to combine science and art, humans and animals, city and countryside, industry and handiwork with each other.

Pair of chickens from Belgium moves into the ZKM

»La Biomista - Cosmopolitan Chicken Project« is, however, also the name of the artist’s installation in the exhibition Exo-Evolution at the GLOBALE. For this, a pair of chickens was temporarily brought over from Belgium to the ZKM in Karlsruhe. This breed, called »Red Jungle Fowl« originally comes from Tibet. According to Vanmechelen, these chickens are the primordial chickens, the Adam and Eve of all chicken breeds so to speak.