Vom Affen und vom Pfau

OF APE AND PEACOCK

At twenty a man is a peacock,

at thirty a lion,

at forty a camel,

at fifty a serpent,

at sixty a dog,

at seventy an ape,

at eighty a nothing at all.

• Morales

The Peacock visited the ape and feels bewilderment. He is touched by the idea that one is supposedly nothing at the age of eighty. Nothing? Absolutely nothing? Does nothing remain? This poem does raise some serious questions, such as: What about the period before the age of twenty?

The peacock wondered: how was the ape shaped by the different stages of the metamorphosis to what he is today- the ape. And: What does this nothingness mean? The protagonist of the real-world embodiment for this mindgame is a magnificient specimen. The starting point for this process is his home, a farmstead full of curiosities on the edge of Dutch civilization. The photographic realisation promises to shed a light on the questions »how did you become yourself?« and »what remains?«.