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Arts Correspondent
Local entreprenuer Chido Govera will join hands with Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen for an exhibition that opens next week at National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Titled “Planetary Community Chicken”, the showcase will run from August 5 to 31 and will mark Harare as one of the launching sites of the project that will go to many other cities globally.The Harare installation heralds the advent of the Planetary Community project on the African continent, and will be an exceptional moment in the National Gallery’s endeavor to bring art and the community together.
Comprising drawings and an installation the exhibition will see Courtauld Gallery transformed into a representation of a farmyard.
The space will house the newest generation of Koen Vanmechelen’s Cosmopolitan Chicken the rooster and the Zimbabwean common chicken the road runner.
The resultant offspring will absorb the genetic pool of the cosmopolitan Chicken rooster and become a new breed of vital chickens less susceptible to diseases, stress and physiological problems.
Also to be included on the installation will be shelves of mushrooms grown at the Future of Hope Foundation in Christonbank.
The foundation works on empowering the female by teaching them sustainable growing of food based on mushrooms.
“The organic mushrooms in the installation will be taken care of together with the chicks by the local communities,” said the gallery in a statement.
“The joint effort will be an example of an integrated food production system that is going to be used elsewhere around the globe. Outside in the garden will be Cosmogolem statue, a wooden structure which symbolises liberation and freedom.
“One to be installed in the sculpture garden will be one of the Cosmogolems found in 33 places around the globe. It will serve as protector and relief for children in need.”
Vanmechelen is a Belgian conceptual artist who was born in 1965 and his work deals with biocultural diversity and identity.
He has collaborated with scientists from different disciplines and uses a plethora of artistic tools for his work from painting and video to installations, innovative 3D techniques, sculptures and glass.
His various projects include, the Cosmopolitan Chicken Research Project, the Cosmogolem, the fertility project Walking Egg and the WW1 remembrance project Combat.
These projects’ supporting foundations were grouped in 2011 into a new institute entitled the Open University of Diversity.
Online Reporter