Systema naturae: a history of in-animate nature by Robert Williams & Jack Aylward-Williams

The latest in a series of collecting projects, father–and-son team Robert Williams and Jack Aylward-Williams have turned their attention to the ecologies of the everyday. They have amassed a collection of quotidian objects found during their regular perambulations over a two-year period. These objects, images and materials, cultural in origin, are representations of flora and fauna. The collection is identified by species, location, date, collector and other meta-data noted. Mindful of historical, contemporary and conventional sources (e.g. Linnaeus, Buffon, Darwin; popular Victorian Natural History writers such as Goldsmith and Wood; publishers Cassell, Warne and Ladybird; and Wikipedia), the collections are then classified. Their organisation and the construction of databases makes it possible to view the material comparatively, to regard it ecologically, anthropologically, culturally and archaeologically. It is possible to identify emergent patterns and to make inferences drawn from the inter-relationships indicated by the circumstances of their discovery.

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