The Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen is an internationally renowned, conceptual artist. His work deals with biocultural diversity and identity. He is mostly known for his Cosmopolitan Chicken Project that the artist developed as a metaphor for our society. Central to this project is the interbreeding of national chicken species into ʻCosmopolitan Chickensʼ. With the C.C.P., and the artistic-scientific projects linked to this project, Vanmechelen positions art categorically where it belongs: in the middle of society, engaging with people, always committed. His oeuvre is as diverse and hybrid as the Cosmopolitan Chicken itself: a unique mix of paintings, drawings, photography, innovative 3D-techniques, video, installations and wooden sculptures. The unifying theme remains the chicken and the egg. But nothing is what it seems. The core of the project is neither the chicken nor the egg, but crossbreeding and the biocultural diversity that comes from it. These thoughts are expanded on at the Open University of Diversity, Vanmechelen’s breeding place covering four international foundations; Walking Egg, CosmoGolem, Cosmopolitan Chicken Research Project and COMBAT.
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