A visual history of the 18th-century rhinoceros and her unusual life as cultural icon and captive creatureIn 1741 a ship arrived in the Netherlands carrying a miraculous animal that few people in Europe had seen before: a young female rhinoceros from India named Clara. For 17 years, Clara traveled with her owner Douwe Mout through almost every country in Europe. Wherever she appeared, she made a sensation, becoming the most famous rhino in European history. Artists such as Jan Wandelaar, Johann Elias Ridinger, Petrus Camper, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon and Pietro Longhi immortalized her in paintings, drawings, sculptures and medals; she even influenced fashion; and she permanently corrected the false image of a rhinoceros perpetuated by Dürer in his famous 1515 engraving.Based on new research, Gijs van der Ham, a former senior curator at the Rijksmuseum, reconstructs her life, travels and captivity, and unravels her influence on the iconography and knowledge of rhinoceroses.
An Italian designer's reconception of the cultural semiotics of headwearDuring a Ghent residency, Italian designer Daniela Dossi created a collaborative textile research project compiling headwear from around the world, producing 800 textile samples to be recomposed in order to recognize mutual difference as a common value: what might the headdress of the first Mexican female President of the United States look like, for example?
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