Beth Collar’s Research Proposal for PAGES

“Today, I would claim, the visual arts have transformed themselves into what might be described as a vast, uncoordinated yet somehow enormously effective research program that looks critically at what we are and how we know what we are – at the foundations of knowledge and perception, and of the structures that modern societies have chosen to construct upon those foundations.” *1

I have begun my research by looking into the role of the female in evolution, asking the question “what are we?”. I am reluctant to give women special treatment: by celebrating individual women who have achieved things 'against the odds' we risk reinforcing the image of female inferiority. Instead I am focusing on the female as a phenomenon, however if I were to have to choose one female I would choose the posited Mitochondrial Eve*2 – the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all living humans, a female in Africa around 150,000 years ago – to be my heroine.

My first goal is to deepen my understanding of the evolutionary and anthropological background. Some of the issues which have come up here are:

• The emergence of human creative intelligence and how this was molded by female sexual preference. And the sexual selection of disadvantageous or useless features in humans and other animals (long tails, extravagant colouring, absurdly large horns or antlers etc.)

• Behavioral patterns in both sexes as a means to attract a mate – a recent study found that women wear make up to appear more fertile thus duping a male into procreating with a less than ideal partner. I intend to explore the implications of this discovery in relation to the history of ideal beauty, masquerade and self-confidence. I have also come across a type of antelope in which the males cake their horns in mud to make them appear bigger, and thus more attractive to the opposite sex.

This research is broadening my understanding and ability to deal with museums collections, I am in the process of creating a catalog of prehistoric artifacts relating irrefutably to women; tools specifically used by women or carved female figures. The female as a symbol of fertility is a recurring icon in ancient cultures, however stronger male gods later replace these deity’s and this, perhaps political, process is often preserved in myths and holy texts. In the exhibition proper, I would like to have a brought together a display of these objects.

I plan to investigate female artists who use evolutionary processes to make their work; this is most likely to exploit technology (and here my project crosses with Annie Spinsters). As well as female artists who’s practice concerns itself with particular elements and theories in evolution and sexual selection. This is a wide-ranging research project, encompassing Anthropology, Psychology, Biology, Archeology and Theology. The artists I intend to involve will retain practices that are similarly complex.



*1 from Figuring It Out by Colin Renfrew

*2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_eve