INCUBATED WORLDS

Incubated Worlds shows the world that diversity can be a wonderful thing, something the world needs to survive.

Tadelle Dessie, Project Director ACGG, ILRI, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Incubated Worlds © Koen Vanmechelen

The INCUBATED WORLDS installation was opened on April 26, 2018 at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Ethiopia. It’s a unique artistic-scientific project. By integrating both living and visual artworks into scientific research, the installation creates a new paradigm that brings together art, science and social engagement in a symbiotic relationship.

INCUBATED WORLDS investigates how introducing diversity can significantly improve the subsistence and the diet of small farming communities.

It’s a collaboration between ILRI's African Chicken Genetics Gains (ACGG) project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Koen Vanmechelen, in that ACGG-selected chicken breeds are crossed with various chickens from the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project. The aim is the creation of a sustainable, productive chicken breed, a Planetary Community Chicken that will thrive in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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By injecting diverse strands of DNA into the local chicken stock, we’re providing an alternative evolutionary model in which science and art come together to connect diversity and productivity, in order to achieve sustainable improvements in the lives of local communities.

Tadelle Dessie, Project Director ACGG,  ILRI, Addis Abeba, Ethiopië