DOMESTIKATION
Phyletisches Museum Jena
26. November 2010 – November 2011
Idea: Prof. Martin S. Fischer
Curator: Dr. Gunnar Brehm
Exhibition Concept: Prof. Dr. Martin Fischer, Dr. Gunnar Brehm, PD Dr. Hans Pohl, Elisabeth Kaufmann, Felix Sattler
Showcase curators: Dr. Gunnar Brehm, Susan Schweiger, Sandra Triepel, Stefan Curth, Pieter Knauthe, Marcus Hergeth, Karsten Swinnes
Scenography: Elisabeth Kaufmann, Felix Sattler
Graphic Design: Dr. Gunnar Brehm, Konrad Angermüller (logo, pictograms)
The Phyletisches Museum's "Medusensaal" special exhibition area showing the Domestikation exhibition. Exhibition logo on and "village square" with bench around the central column were designed by Elisabeth Kaufmann, Felix Sattler (both: idea, concept) and Konrad Angermüller (graphic design).
Designers’ notes:
Village Square: Much of the team's research into the history of domestication relied on Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel" that showed how plant and animal domestication were crucial to the establishment of sedentary lifestyles. Hence, we got the idea to create the impression of a central "village square", with a bench around the column and a fictional village's coat of arms as key scenographic elements of the exhibition.
Logo: The tools used in the design of the logo, crook (sheperd's staff) and flail, have been ancient insignia of both political and clerical power dating back to the age of Egyptian pharaos. Moreover, the Bible's First Book of Moses (Genesis), Chapter 4 introduces the brothers Cain and Abel as the first farmers, hence the biblical beginning of civilization is linked with plant and animal domestication: And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
We found it made sense to show our coat of arms together with the Book of Moses quote to demonstrate the effect and importance of domestication not only for plant and animal evolution and diversity but also for cultural history and the evolution of political, social and religious systems. It also seemed a good joke to have a Bible quote in the "Medusensaal", right in the old sanctum of the evolution biologist and declared "Anti-Pope" Ernst Haeckel.
Kalkül und Leidenschaft (Reason and Emotion) installations: In order to balance the scientific presentation of information and artifacts in the showcases, we felt the need to devise and design a number of scenic installations that allowed for a more emotional access to the topic and that were also a possibility to use artistic means to investigate the cultural implications and "epiphenomena" of domestication. Even if we wanted them to appear very different from the showcase displays, we still wanted to use an aesthetic derived from those of natural history collections with their regard for morphological comparison and emphasis on (natural) diversity. The four installations were created as rather rough appearing wooden walls emphasizing the idea of a village square with adjacent cottage or barnyard buildings. The four topics were
- a) Dressage featuring a collection of dog leashes. We tend to regard those first as a practical tool to carry out human power over animals. To us, it was even more important that they publicly visualize a distinct "channel" between human and animal. The diversity of available leashes on the market displays much of the emotional quality of human-animal relationships as well as the real or intended social status of each "pair" or "couple". Furthermore, dressage is always about creating an anthropomorphic animal, which is probably most convincingly pointed out in the genre of comic films featuring animal protagonists. We felt the need to show that there is also a cultural technique reversing this making of the anthropomorphic animal: As in certain sex practices, humans sometimes also tend to "play animal", which is why we added a leash from the stock of a sex toys manufacturer to the display.
File:Felixsattler domestikation 09.jpg
File:Felixsattler domestikation 10.jpg
