Extinct in the Wild
Extinct in the Wild
The exhibition Extinct in the Wild brings together flora and fauna that are no longer found in nature, but persist exclusively in cultivation or captivity. Officially designated “extinct in the wild,” these homeless species have left nature behind to fully enter the circuits of human culture.
Each species is displayed within a life-support system tailored to the organism’s unique needs. Exhibition staff will be trained to tend these fragile living organisms. Returning curation to its ancient roots in cura, meaning “care,” the curator becomes a caretaker.
The exhibition transports species across national borders, and transplants nature into the space of high culture. In an age of mass extinction, these modernist techniques of displacement and collage have become strategies of survival.
Extinct in the Wild, 2017.
Extinct in the Wild sites have been added to Extinct.ly in association with the Serpentine Galleries' 2014 "Extinction Marathon: Visions of the Future."
Extinct in the Wild was shown at the Fondazione Prada February 9 - April 9, 2017, and at the XX Bienal de Arquitectura y Urbanismo in Valparaíso, Chile in 2017. In 2018, a version of the work was permanently installed as a roof garden at the Swiss Institute in New York.
