Exhibition at Siten questions the boundary between culture and nature

class=”sc-3778e872-0 cKDKQr”>

How and why did humans domesticate the wolf about 15,000 years ago, teach canaries to sing melodious tunes in the 15th century, selectively breed Eringer cows in the 19th or chicken lines in the 20th century?

“The reasons aren’t always what you suspect,” says Nicolas Kramar, director of the Valais Museum of Natural History. According to research, the rooster was domesticated 8,000 years ago to use its feathers for jewelry or for fighting. The domestication of the aurochs, the ancestor of cattle, about 11,000 years ago, was associated with prestige.

“Humans have always influenced nature for economic, aesthetic, fun, scientific, and even military reasons that evolve with societies,” explains Kramar. Thus, natural history is not independent of history as a whole.

The exhibition includes written and acoustic narrations. An 1868 letter from the naturalist Charles Darwin discusses the diversity of animals and plants under the influence of domestication.

The title of the exhibition, “Artificiel” (artificial), is based on Darwin’s term “artificial selection”. The naturalist used it after he introduced the principle of natural selection, one of the pillars of the theory of evolution.

The exhibition invites visitors to question what is commonly classified into each of the categories of nature and culture. “Because the boundaries between natural and artificial are much more permeable than you might think,” stresses Nicolas Kramar.

(SDA)

Source : Blick