Marcus Coates is a visual artist and amateur naturalist whose work explores the connections between human life and the rhythms of the natural world. Today in Athens…, is a continuation of a project which the artist has shown in various places around the world. Based on research conducted in the greater vicinity of Athens, a calendar has been compiled and is displayed οn an outdoor billboard contains 365 entries, each one recording the corresponding day of the year and reveals the various daily phenomena occurring in the lives of nearby plants and animals: spiders devouring their webs, young rabbits venturing from their parents, beetles emerging from underground, birds migrating. These subtle yet vital events, once markers of seasonal change, have faded from our collective daily consciousness. They are happening all around us, but we either cannot see them or are oblivious to the fact. By drawing attention to these moments of nature’s cycles by means of a daily diary, Coates invites us to reflect on the shared struggles and joys that connect us to other species: birth, death, survival, renewal, shelter, growth. Today in Athens… rekindles our appreciation for the delicate cycles of life around us, urging us to see, value and protect the natural world – in our own back yards – that we share with other species. In Athens, Coates conducted research with the help of the Goulandris Natural History Museum, the Philodassiki Society of Athens and the Hellenic Ornithological Society.

The work is part of the Residency Program of the Project SUB 6.4 “Actions to promote Greek cultural exports and strengthen the Greek cultural name by the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens”, implemented within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”, and funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

The Sounds of Others: A Biophonic Line is a digital animation which uses graphics to depict the sonic connections among 25 seemingly unrelated animal species. Recordings of birds, fish, mammals, humans and insects have been sped up or slowed down to allow what is usually inaudible to the human ear  to be heard. The chirping of a starling slowed down to 51% reminds one of a child’s voice, while that of a curlew played at half its original speed sounds like the call of the white-cheeked gibbon. The sound of the red deer is almost identical to that of a humpback whale. But if we play the call of the fifteen-meter-long sea mammal at a speed that is 863% faster than its original speed, then it sounds like the voice of the reed bunting, a bird whose body is just fifteen centimetres long. The connotative power of sound helps reinforce the sense of empathy in the human listener as it makes manifest, in an empirical manner, the deeper bonds we share with other species.

Extinct Animals is a series of sculptures, plaster casts of the artist’s hands, each moulded while he performed the shadow of an extinct animal, particularly species that have been lost due to human activity. These works collectively address the loss of species and the human role in that process, inviting us to consider the fragility of life and the importance of preserving the diversity of species for future generations.

Extinct Species:

Labrador duck
Scientific Name: Camptorhynchus labradorius
Lived in the coastal waters of northeastern North America, especially around Labrador and Newfoundland. Last confirmed sighting in 1878.

Pyrenean ibex
Scientific Name: Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica
Lived in mountainous regions of the Pyrenees in France and Spain. Declared extinct in 2000.

Irish elk
Scientific Name: Megaloceros giganteus
Roamed across Eurasia, especially in Ireland, during the Late Pleistocene. Extinct around 7,700 years ago.

Eastern elk
Scientific Name: Cervus canadensis canadensis
Lived in Eastern North America, from southern Canada to the Appalachian Mountains. Extinct by 1880.

Auroch
Scientific Name: Bos primigenius
Lived across Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Last recorded in Poland in 1627.

Stellar’s sea cow
Scientific Name: Hydrodamalis gigas
Lived in the Bering Sea, especially around the Commander Islands. Discovered in 1741 and extinct by 1768.

Pied raven
Scientific Name: Corvus corax varius morpha leucophaeus
Lived in Iceland, primarily in coastal and lowland areas. Disappeared in the early 1900s.

Japanese Honshu wolf
Scientific Name: Canis lupus hodophilax
Lived in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu islands of Japan. Last sighting in 1905.

Pinta Island tortoise
Scientific Name: Chelonoidis abingdonii
Lived on Pinta Island, Galápagos archipelago. Declared extinct in 2012 after the death of ‘Lonesome George’, the last known individual.

Atlas bear
Scientific Name: Ursus arctos crowtheri
Lived in North Africa, especially the Atlas Mountains. Extinct by the 1870s.

Golden toad
Scientific Name: Incilius periglenes
Lived in high-altitude cloud forests near Monteverde, Costa Rica. Last seen in 1989.

Javan tiger
Scientific Name: Panthera tigris sondaica
Lived in Java, Indonesia. Last confirmed sighting in the 1970s.

Barbary lion
Scientific Name: Panthera leo leo
Lived in North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt. The north African population has been extinct in the wild since the 1960s. 

Yangtze River dolphin
Scientific Name: Lipotes vexillifer
Lived in the Yangtze River in China. Declared functionally extinct in 2006.

Syrian elephant
Scientific Name: Elephas maximus asurus
Lived in Ancient Syria and the Middle East. Extinct around 100 BC.

Lake Pedder earthworm
Scientific Name: Hypolimnus pedderensis
Lived in Lake Pedder region in Tasmania, Australia. Declared extinct in the 1990s.

Passenger pigeon
Scientific Name: Ectopistes migratorius
Lived in Eastern North America, in vast migratory flocks. Last individual died in captivity in 1914.

Arabian ostrich
Scientific Name: Struthio camelus syriacus
Lived in the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula. Extinct by the 1960s.

Bluebuck
Scientific Name: Hippotragus leucophaeus
Roamed the grasslands of South Africa. Extinct by the early 1800s.