Chicken exhibition at National Gallery
By Kudzayi Zvinavashe
The National Art Gallery is running a ground breaking exhibition that merges science and art titled Planetary Community Chicken (PCC) by renowned Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen.
PPC was officially opened last week by Koen after a year putting together the exhibition and is expected to run for the entire month.
Koen’s work is a fusion of art and science as it features a giant installation piece of a chicken run which has local traditional chicken hut along with Senegalese huts which shelter a local road runner chickens and a cross breed rooster that is a result of Koen’s 25 years chicken cross breeding experiments between chickens from around the world.
Speaking in an interview with Showbiz, Koen said: “The chicken from the cross breeding is much more fertile, more diverse and more diverse so it becomes very organic.”
Raphael Chikukwa NGZ, Chief Curator said: “The two little huts are copies of a Senegalese chicken hut while the other two are Zimbabwean. The Planetary Chicken Community Chicken exhibition also extends into the garden with the Cosmogolem.”
The chicken that has been produced from the cross breeding process is able to adapt in different environments and climates concurrently with disease resistant and has intentions to roll out the hi-breed in impoverished communities in a bid to alleviate poverty.
In Zimbabwe Koen will roll out the hi-breed chicken through his partnership with the future of Hope foundation, a local organisation founded by food expert and social entrepreneur Chido Govera.
Future of hope has been teaching Zimbabwe’s impoverished societies on how they can grow mushroom and make a living out of it, as such Koens installation piece is next to another piece of a mushroom sacks.
“After so many years of crossbreeding in the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project (CCP), the artist found that each of the successive generations of crossbreeds is more resilient, lives longer, is less susceptible to disease and exhibits less aggressive behaviour,” said Koen.
From an aerial view the installation piece has giant nests housing ostrich eggs and Koen said the meaning changes from points of view.
He said the exhibition represented “the past, present and the future….”
This is not the first time the duo has worked together “Since their first meeting in 2012, Vanmechelen and Govera have collaborated in numerous projects and presentations internationally. In Zimbabwe, they have held expression workshops with children, and developed the Centre that houses the Future of Hope Foundation. The exhibition in the National Gallery of Zimbabwe is their latest collaborative project. The Centre will house the museum’s Planetary Community Chicken and mushroom following the exhibition” said Chikukwa in conclusion.
