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Hypothesis of a Tree, 2016
Frottages of fossils on paper and ink
Courtesy of the artist and Mendes Wood DM São Paulo, New York, Brussels

Hypothesis of a Tree addresses different theories of evolution put forward by genetics and paleontology. This spiral installation is based on a phylogenetic tree representing the evolutionary relationships between different biological species, inferred through the similarities or differences of their physical or genetic characteristics. In each one of the bamboo structure’s 56 branches, a paper frottage hangs, representing a species’ fossil sediments. The technique utilized in this piece was taken from the work of Merle Greene Robertson (1913–2011), a U.S. archaeologist who was the first to carry out an exhaustive investigation of the Maya region in Mexico and Guatemala, using frottage to create around 5000 images of monuments found at archaeological sites.

Created for the 32nd São Paulo Biennial, most of these frottages were made at a dig in the Ceará Cariri region of Brazil’s Northeast. The piece creates a physical space that allows visitors to understand geological time over million-year periods, thus gauging the scale of evolutionary processes beyond human existence.

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