About
125.660 Spesimen Sejarah Alam
Komunitas Salihara Gallery
Jl. Salihara No. 16 Jakarta Selatan
16 August – 15 September 2015
125,660 Specimens of Natural History is the first major exhibition as part of Reassembling the Natural; the exhibition project addresses colonial natural history collections and the environmental transformations they produced, and the legacy of these activities, known as the Anthropocene. The project follows the course of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), best known for co-discovering the theory of evolution by natural selection. From 1854 to 1862, Wallace travelled the Malay Archipelago, documenting the region’s biodiversity and amassing a gigantic collection of specimens for European museums. The project invites artists to retrace, re-appropriate or reassess the expedition, its documents, and its various artifacts, and explores how trans-cultural collaborative approaches to artistic and scientific practice can address urgent environmental questions.
Premiering at the gallery of the multi-arts center Komunitas Salihara, Jakarta, Indonesia on 15 August 2015 as the exhibition entitled 125.660 Spesimen Sejarah Alam, the project presents works by 13 Indonesian participants and 13 foreign participants—including ten newly created artworks—alongside books, archival material and zoological specimens from the Research Center for Biology/Indonesian Institute of Sciences (MZB/LIPI) at Bogor-Cibinong, and related historical objects. A special highlight of 125.660 Spesimen is a selection from LIPI’s collection of historical glass plate negatives, which document the environmental and botanical transformations of the Indonesian archipelago at the turn of the twentieth century. These negatives have never before been presented to the public and comprise the only collection of its kind in Indonesia.
The exhibition also hosts a weekly program aimed at a general public that brings together Indonesian and international artists, environmentalists, and natural scientists. A catalog in Bahasa Indonesian, including an essay on Wallace’s Malay expedition by evolutionary biologist Andrew Berry, will be available gratis as part of the show.
The Jakarta iteration, 125.660 Spesimen Sejarah Alam, is realized in partnership with the multi-arts center Komunitas Salihara and the Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense/Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI/MZB), in cooperation with Schering Stiftung and with additional support of the Goethe-Institut and the British Council.
Read and see more about the exhibition in [Stedelijk Studies No. 4]