Russian Utopia: a depository

Architectural Fantasies
Komar V. and Melamid A. in collaboration with beavers Architectural Fantasies 1998

Private collection

In our new project, "Environmental Installation – A Collaboration", we plan to collaborate with beavers and termites to create outdoor installations in their natural habitats. We have long admired the mysterious architecture of these animals who are driven by genetically-based creative instincts that we still do not fully understand.
We propose a symbolic dialogue between the expressive organic forms of beaver dams and termite towers and the elemental geometric forms discovered by ancient cultures, particularly the Egyptians and ancient Greeks. Throughout the history, artists and thinkers from Plato and Pythagoras to Goethe and to Cezanne have postulated the existence of certain ideal geometric forms underlying the apparent chaos of the visual world. We believe these essential forms also pattern the remarkable organic creations of animal architects. This approach to art will become a symbol of the ecological co-existence of different forms of life, different minds, and different creativities.

Utopia Foundation, Moscow




		`Komar V. and Melamid A. in collaboration with beavers Architectural Fantasies 1998` Private collection In our new project, "Environmental Installation – A Collaboration", we plan to collaborate with beavers and termites to create outdoor installations in their natural habitats. We have long admired the mysterious architecture of these animals who are driven by genetically-based creative instincts that we still do not fully understand. We propose a symbolic dialogue between the expressive organic forms of beaver dams and termite towers and the elemental geometric forms discovered by ancient cultures, particularly the Egyptians and ancient Greeks. Throughout the history, artists and thinkers from Plato and Pythagoras to Goethe and to Cezanne have postulated the existence of certain ideal geometric forms underlying the apparent chaos of the visual world. We believe these essential forms also pattern the remarkable organic creations of animal architects. This approach to art will become a symbol of the ecological co-existence of different forms of life, different minds, and different creativities.