Scott Rogers at Collective, Edinburgh

Endling is an exhibition of new work by Scott Rogers (MFA 2012) developed as part of Satellites Programme 2015. Endling is a term used to describe the last remaining member of a species that will soon become extinct. Incorporating sculpture and text, the exhibition is the culmination of research developed from Scott’s interest in processes of decay, mutation and disappearance. The artworks focus on ideas of extinction and the relationships and contradictions between preservation and collapse.
Central to the exhibition is a text work developed between the artist and cultural anthropologist Shirley Lindenbaum on the subject of kuru, a neurological disorder experienced by the South Fore people in Papua New Guinea. Similar to Mad Cow Disease and often referred to as ‘Laughing Sickness’, the disorder spread predominantly due to the consumption of human brain matter and was eventually eradicated through the introduction of western cultural practices. Concentrating on Shirley’s fieldwork with the South Fore people the text considers the link between the epidemic and cultural change, particularly in relation to colonialism.
Image Credit: John James Audubon, Passenger Pigeons, c.1824.