CATARINA MIRANDA

Animals are divided into

(a) those that belong to the emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) included in the present classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s-hair brush; (l) etcetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that at a distance resemble flies. The Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, Jorge Luis Borges

snail * lamb * shark * orang-utan * rhino | The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge present a sequence of solos by Flocks&Shoals Collective, which animals’ titles serve as metaphors of the subjects to respectively be approached: gender and hermaphroditism, social tabulation, mediation of violence, own built up prisons, animalism and eroticism.

The artists Huguet, Markgraf, Miranda, Schmidt and Soares - gather specific starting points from their current questions towards the symbolization and representation of the body in art’s context as well as in present societies. The common premise of the group is “the attempt to uncategorize the world on scene”.

The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge is a fictitious taxonomy of animals described by the writer Jorge Luis Borges in his 1942 essay “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”. In order to illustrate the arbitrariness and cultural specificity of any attempt to categorize the world, Borges describes this example of an alternate taxonomy, taken from an ancient Chinese encyclopedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge.