“I don’t think we’re looking at a plant,” Whitby says, tentative, at one status meeting, risking his new relationship with the science division, which he has embraced as a kind of sanctuary.
“Then why are we seeing a plant, Whitby?” Cheney, managing to convey an all-consuming exasperation.
These questions, excerpted from Jeff VanderMeer’s novel, Acceptance: Southern Reach Trilogy, fade in and out of a wall at Hopeful Monsters, New Delhi-based artist Rohini Devasher’s ongoing solo exhibition. They ask a viewer to reconsider what we take for granted about the world we live in. In front of these barely there lines of wall text lies a series of cabinets fitted with screens facing up at the viewer, each a distinct biological order — taxonomic ranks used in the classification of organisms. These include Odonata (Dragonflies), Lepidoptera (Butterflies), Hymenoptera (Bees), Diptera (Flies), and Coleoptera (Beetles). According to Devasher, these taxonomic orders show an amazing diversity of patterns. This diversity is thought to arise through novel switches in the genome that turn genes on in new contexts, thereby producing new patterns. They are therefore the perfect place to begin to understand morphology.
