The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project (Ccp) 1999 — 2016

THE COSMOPOLITAN CHICKEN PROJECT (CCP) 1999 — 2016 × × × ♂ MECHELSE KOEKOEK POULET DE BRESSE ♀ ♀ MECHELSE LOUISIANA ♂ ♂ MECHELSE ♀ Belgium France CCP Thailand CCP China × × × ♀ MECHELSE BRESSE ENGLISH REDCAP ♂ ♂ MECHELSE AURACANA ♀ ♂ MECHELSE ♀ CCP England CCP Brazil CCP Egypt × × × ♀ JERSEY GIANT MECHELSE REDCAP ♂ ♀ DENIZLI HOROZU MECHELSE AURACANA ♂ ♀ POULET DE SENEGAL MECHELSE ♂ U.S.A. CCP Turkey CCP Senegal CCP × ♂ MECHELSE CEMANI WYANDOTTE ♀ CCP Detroit × × × ♂ MECHELSE GIANT DRESDNER ♀ ♀ MECHELSE DENIZLI CUBALAYA ♂ ♀ MECHELSE SENEGAL STYRIAN ♂ CCP Germany CCP Cuba CCP Slovenia × × × ♀ UILEBAARD MECHELSE DRESDNER ♂ ♀ ANCONA MECHELSE CUBALAYA ♂ ♂ SULMTALER MECHELSE STYRIAN ♀ The Netherlands CCP Italy CCP Austria CCP × × × ♂ MECHELSE UILEBAARD LOUISIANA ♀ ♂ MECHELSE ANCONA ♀ ♀ MECHELSE SULMTALER AYAM CEMANI ♂ CCP Mexico CCP Russia CCP Indonesia THE COSMOPOLITAN CHICKEN PROJECT (CCP) DIVERSITY AND DUALISM Nothing is what it seems. That is but one of the many generation, new blood is needed. “Every organism The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project: approach - much more surprising - lessons of the Cosmopolitan needs some other organism in order to survive,” says and state of progress Chicken Project (CCP), a worldwide crossbreeding Vanmechelen, “If there is one secret in life, maybe it’s program involving national and regional chicken that everything is dual. Chicken and egg, cause and The first generation hybrid, the Mechelse Bresse, breeds that started in 1998 by visual artist Koen Van- effect, good and bad, construction and destruction: resulted from crossbreeding the Belgian Mechelse mechelen (b. 1965, Sint-Truiden, Belgium). everything exists in relation to the Other. If you pursue Koekoek - the pride of Flemish chicken farmers - this line of reasoning, you might even conclude that with the top French chicken, the Poulet de Bresse. Vanmechelen found that each successive generation there’s a parallel solar system outside our own, ensur- Each successive generation of hybrids comes from of hybrids was more resilient than its purer-bred par- ing our continued survival.” crossbreeding the previous generation’s hybrid with ents. The chickens lived longer, were less susceptible another pure breed. to disease, and exhibited less aggressive behavior. “I see the chicken as a metaphor for man and the egg Also, less unexpectedly, the morphological and both as a metaphor for the world and as the labora- In 2015, the artist’s ongoing creation of a world- hybrid phenotypical characteristics were blurred by selective tory of the future. The egg is a protected environment chicken reached, with the Mechelse Cemani, its breeding. The ultimate result of many generations of and a source of life. Yet it is also a cage, a restriction nineteenth generation; born on the occasion of the crossbreeding is a truly Cosmopolitan Chicken, car- from which we have to break free.” History teaches us Biennial of Indonesia as a result between the crossing rying the genes of all the world’s chicken breeds. The that progress is predicated on daring to let go of what of the completly black Javanese Ayam Cemani and starting point for all these different breeds once was we already have. The result of hybridisation is often the Mechelse Sulmtaler. One year before, this Mechelse the Red Junglefowl - the original chicken. Its many uncertain. Do we dare expose ourselves to the unex- Sulmtaler came into existence after a crossing between descendant breeds are all man-made endpoints, pected? Vanmechelen certainly does: “Fertilisation, the Austrian Sulmtaler and the Mechelse Styrian, a sometimes literally so, in the sense that they are enrichment – they always come from outside. It’s pre- royal generation, born in the castle of Chimay (BE). infertile. Vanmechelen wants to end all these breeds cisely the unexpected things that are important to me. To date, the hybrid consists of regional breeds of by blending them into a new starting point, providing a I take notice of apparent coincidences.” This is why chickens in Belgium, France, England, U.S.A., chicken-breeding example of the principle of creative the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project is also an answer Germany, The Netherlands, Mexico, Thailand, destruction. But the CCP does not aim to reconstitute in progress, a work of art that will never be complete. Brazil, Turkey, Cuba, Italy, Russia, China, Egypt, the proto-chicken. It does not want to return to the How the Cosmopolitan Chicken will turn out or where Senegal, Slovenia, Austria and Indonesia. past. On the contrary, it symbolises the future. The the program will end, remain open questions, just as CCP is the starting point of a new form of evolution what will come out of the egg is an open question, that will never end, a perpetuum mobile of genetic every time around. diversification and recombination. The diversity that characterises Vanmechelen’s work Vanmechelen’s oeuvre is as diverse and as hybrid is not confined to the media he uses. The CCP in- as the Cosmopolitan Chicken itself: it’s a unique mix volves a symbiosis of art, science, philosophy, politics of painting, drawing, photography, video, innovative and ethics. It is Vanmechelen’s way of reflecting on 3D techniques, installations and wooden sculptures, the existential questions of individual identity and life, whose unifying theme is the chicken and the egg. and it touches on contemporary issues regarding glo- But, as mentioned before: nothing is what it seems. balisations, racism, genetic modification and cloning. The core of the project is neither chicken nor egg, but The project invites the onlooker to join in the debate. crossbreeding and the diversity that comes from it. The Cosmopolitan Chicken holds up a mirror to us. Crossbreeding is a practical but also a philosoph- ical necessity, if not a moral duty. Today’s chicken breeds are failing; to prevent inbreeding and de-.

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