Effigies
2025
Project developed during the workshop at Natural History Museum of Milan with Joan Fontcuberta
Effigies is a speculative paleontological research project that, intertwining science, ecology and philosophical imagery, reconstructs a discovery of photographic negatives in different natural areas such as forests, deserts, waterways and wetlands. The photographs, corroded by time and atmospheric agents, reveal static representations of animals: taxidermied bodies and artificial settings, part of museum dioramas, the last surviving effigies of a now extinct fauna. These negatives, originally conceived as time capsules, humanity’s last attempt to fix and preserve the memory of biodiversity, have undergone a transformative process. The photosensitive surfaces, made of animal gelatin, in contact with organic elements, bacteria and specific environmental conditions, have triggered unexpected processes. The matter of the image, which once served only to record, has behaved as a sensitive matrix, an incubator of unclassifiable life forms, exceeding the logic of known biology.
