Pink Chicken Project

Nonhuman Nonsense

The Pink Chicken Project is a speculative bioengineering proposal that envisions using a groundbreaking biotechnology called Gene Drive to genetically modify the bones and feathers of all chickens worldwide, turning them pink. Scientists predict that chicken bones will serve as a key geological marker of the Anthropocene—the epoch defined by human impact on the planet. By altering the future fossil record, this intervention would imprint a pink line into the rock strata.

Beyond its visual impact, each chicken carries a manifesto encoded in its DNA—a genetic message that questions the power structures driving the Anthropocene’s destruction and highlights the connection between social and ecological justice.

Presented as an activist campaign, this speculative proposal challenges us to critically reflect on the ethical and political dimensions of emerging biotechnologies. How does genetically altering an entire species compare to the existing violence inflicted on billions of chickens in factory farms? In a world where human influence continually reshapes nature, how can we cultivate more ethical relationships with nonhuman species?

Nonhuman Nonsense

― Artist

Nonhuman Nonsense is a research-driven art and design collective working in the fields of social dreaming and world-making. The collective’s practice engages with the nonhuman—animals, objects, ecologies, technologies, and the spectres that exist between and beyond fixed categories. Nonsense is approached as an antidote to “common sense,” using paradox and speculative storytelling to explore the ethical and metaphysical dimensions of relationships with the (nonhuman) world. The collective creates contradictory scenarios and propositions, drawing from and misappropriating ideas from science, computing, law, and mythology. These projects take many forms, including interactive installations, workshops, short films, public sculptures, campaigns, chatbots, and books. Guided by curiosity and compassion, Nonhuman Nonsense treats the separation of human and nonhuman as nonsense in itself. The collective frequently collaborates with other beings—scientists, researchers, and friends—but at its core consists of three people: Leo Fidjeland, Linnea Våglund, and Filips Staņislavskis, based between Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Dharamshala.

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