Bestiary
Shown at: Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2021)
Paper, digital drawings, photographic colour print, gold embossing
40 prints of 33 x 46 cm each
A New Jataka Tale:
A Sumatran Rhinoceros, a Splendid Poison Frog, a Golden Bamboo Lemur loudly argue on the way to extinction. “Which form of life will persist”, they ask, “outlasting all others?” “How many will persist as ghosts in the textbooks of zoology?”
The Homo Sapiens, out-of-turn, says that only he can claim the future. At this, the splendid frog, with no poison to dispense, retreats into shadow. The golden lemur, barely clinging to existence, chooses silence. Only the formerly magnificent rhinoceros, legendary for her patience speaks up.
“Nothing persists, friends, if it is not remembered. Dear biped, we are still in your remembered bestiary, and in your library. So we live, after a fashion, in your memory. But once you are done with us, what will be left for you to live with, and live on? And once you depart, who will remember you? The cockroaches, they do not like archives!”
She attained Buddha-hood.