Exhibition: With the shell on the back through the Carpathian Mountains

Exhibition: With the shell on the back through the Carpathian Mountains

Artist: Ko Kono (Japan)

Collector, photos: Daniel Nan

Location: Natural History Museum Sibiu, Multimedia room (Cetății Street no.1)

Duration: May 12 – August 31, 2023

Opening: Friday, May 12, 1 p.m.

Curators: Ana-Maria Păpureanu, Dr. Ghizela Vonica, Silviu Țicu, Dr. Nicolae Trif, Maria Stănciugelu. 

Collaborator: Raluca Bugneriu

 

The Natural History Museum in Sibiu, a section of the Brukenthal National Museum, has a heritage of over one million specimens. Their scientific, historical and cultural value has attracted many researchers from around the world. Among the most sought after are endemics, species that live in a restricted area (the territory of Romania) or holotype specimens (characteristic specimen for a given species, after which the respective species were described for the first time in the world). These specimens were collected by the members of the Transylvanian Society of Natural Sciences in Sibiu (Siebenbürgischer Verein für Naturwissenschaften zu Hermannstadt), the society that in 1895 inaugurated the current museum. The Society's members were pioneers in the research of Romania's endemic flora and fauna.

 

In the museum's Malacological (mollusc) collection, many endemics are preserved thanks to the Bielz and von Kimakowicz families, respectively father-son naturalists: Michael Bielz (1787 – 1866), Eduard Albert Bielz (1827 – 1898) and Mauritius von Kimakowicz (1849-1921) together with his son Richard Emanuel von Kimakowicz (1876 – 1973). The Bielz collection (over 200,000 specimens) and the Kimakowicz collection (over 300,000 specimens) are among the oldest and most valuable collections of this kind in Romania and beyond. Over the years, these collections have aroused the interest of numerous collectors and researchers such as Mr. Daniel Nan, scientific collaborator of the Natural History Museum in Sibiu since 2011.

 

For decades, Mr. Nan trekked across the Carpathian Mountains, with the shell on his back, collecting and studying endemic species both individually and in their natural habitat. In the study of the endemic shells, he collaborated with the Japanese artist Ko Kono (http://ko-kono.com/) who, starting from the real shell of the endemic snails from Romania, recreated the body of the animals, with an exemplary accuracy, as part of the "Real Snails" project initiated by the Rasenkan Museum, Kyoto, Japan. The project aimed to reproduce more than 800 species of land snails from Japan, as well as other species from around the world, providing a complete view of these amazing animals, from the perspective of natural science and artistic expression. The reproduced species, being endemic and protected by law at the national level, cannot currently be collected in large numbers from their natural habitat. That is why the shells preserved in the museum collections, the ones that described the species for the first time in the world, the photographs of their natural habitat taken by Daniel Nan were the basis for the Japanese artist's creation of the reproductions. The bodies of the animals, which cannot be preserved as such, were made of silicone rubber.

 

Thus, you will be able to admire in the temporary exhibition the natural endemics from the museum collections and next to them, faithful reproductions made by Ko Kono. It is the first time in Romania that the works of the Japanese artist will be exhibited in a temporary exhibition.

The approach of the Japanese artist Ko Kono in creating his works is to get close to the harmony of reality and to discover the "poetry" of living things. Mr. Kono is known in Japan for the precision and delicacy with which he artistically reconstructs animals, being the subject of numerous exhibitions in his native country but also in New York (USA).

 

To complete the artistic and scientific picture, the original photographs taken by Daniel Nan in the areas of origin of the endemics will also be exhibited.

 

The temporary exhibition With the shell on the back through the Carpathian Mountains also has the objective of contributing to the conservation of mountain habitats in Romania. Therefore, they will be displayed in the showcases alongside snails and specimens from the museum's entomological (insects), geological, botanical and ornithological (birds) collections to emphasize the floristic and faunal richness of these habitats. It is essential to preserve the natural habitat of endemics of Romania, as our ancestors did, such as the members of the Transylvanian Society of Natural Sciences, over 100 years ago.