The Department of Artificial Butterflies (DoAB) is a part of a larger project that aims to create a Museum of UnNatural History. The Museum will advance its global mission to discover, interpret, and disseminate information about human contemporary cultures, the natural world as we reproduce it and ecology through a wide-ranging program of scientific research, education, and exhibition.

The “DoAB” aims to research animal issues in contemporary art in relation to John Berger’s text “Why look at animals” which examines some of the most important concepts in social theory and philosophy such as the action of the gaze, the relationships between humans and animals in society as well as the objectification of the animal and the distancing of the human from the animal.

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Essays, conversations, selected texts, and a rich collection of thought-provoking artworks celebrate a revolution in bio art. Expertly designed by Omnivore and printed on special papers, including chlorophyll cover and crush citrus and crush cocoa pages.

The texts and artworks in Symbionts provoke a necessary conversation about our species and its relation to the planet. Are we merely “mammalian weeds,” as evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis put it? Or are we partners in producing and maintaining the biosphere, as she also suggested? Symbionts reflects on a recent revolution in bio art that departs from the late-1990s code-oriented experiments to embrace entanglement and symbiosis (“with-living”). Combining documentation of contemporary artworks with texts by leading thinkers, Symbionts, which accompanies an exhibition at MIT List Visual Arts Center, offers an expansive view of humanity’s place on the planet.

Color reproductions document works by international artists that respond to the revelation that planetary microbes construct and maintain our biosphere. A central essay by coeditor Caroline Jones sets their work in the context of larger discussions around symbiosis; additional essays, an edited roundtable discussion, and selected excerpts follow. Contributors explore, among other things, the resilient ecological knowledge of indigenous scholars and artists, and “biofiction,” a term coined by Jones to describe the work of such theoretical biologists as Jacob von Uexküll as well as the witty parafictions of artist Anicka Yi. A playful glossary puts scientific terms in conversation with cultural ones.

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Emergence Magazine is an online publication with an annual print edition.

It has always been a radical act to share stories during dark times. They are regenerative spaces of creation and renewal. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the earth, we look to emerging stories. In them we find the timeless connections between ecology, culture, and spirituality.

It’s hard to reflect on the past year without feeling like we’ve entered a fictional tale. And yet here we are: not only has COVID-19 taken root around the world, but wildfires have raged across the Arctic Circle, Brazil, Australia, and the western United States; people have risen up to stand against racial injustice, and it feels as though we’re witnessing only the beginning of a deep fracturing of this civilization. We do not yet know the changes that will come to light locally and globally.

Volume II of our print edition speaks to the multiple crises and opportunities unfolding around us: plague, extinctions, and loneliness grip us ever tighter even as they affirm our connection with the living world. Across 400 pages—and through essays, photography, adapted multimedia, poems, and original artwork—this collection considers the stories that we want to seed in these mythological times.

Contributions by Fred Bahnson, Diane Barker, Alex Boersma, Sheila Pree Bright, Aletheia Casey, Stephen Crotts, Bathsheba Demuth, Camille T. Dungy, Paul Elie, Beth Evans, Charles Foster, CMarie Fuhrman, Forrest Gander, Jay Griffiths, Bear Guerra, David G. Haskell, Lisa Lee Herrick, Brenda Hillman, Linda Hogan, Sophy Hollington, Katie Holten, Nick Hunt, Amaud Jamaul Johnson and more.

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