The Permian Projects are two research projects by Axel Straschnoy on the natural history collection at the Perm Regional Museum, Perm Kray, Russia. The backdrop of the projects is the End-Permian Extinction (the biggest extinction ever to take place on Earth). The projects reflect on the Museum of Natural History and on the ongoing extinction process. 
IPERCUBO is pleased to present this Online Exclusive and Viewing Room as a preview of The Permian Projects, as well as a presentation of the recently published catalogue. 

The Russian city of Perm gives its name to the Permian period—lasting roughly from 300 to 250 million years ago. The period ended in the largest mass extinction ever recorded. Up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species became extinct. It is also the only known mass extinction of insects. Because of this historical connection, the local Regional Museum of Natural History exhibits mainly Permian fossils. However, it also holds a wide range of items, mostly from the Holocene period (last 12,000 years) which are never displayed.

One of the jewels in Perm Museum’s collection is the entomological collection. Because of the risk that live bugs present to the dead bugs in the collection, the room where it is housed is fumigated twice yearly. The Museum kills living insects to keep the dead insects intact. Focused on the nature-out-there, the Museum fails to consider itself as a place overrun by living beings, some of which might work against its stated mission. At Straschnoy's insistence, the Museum has begun collecting the insects it kills as part of its conservation efforts. These insects form now a new collection, the Perm Regional Museum’s Insect Collection which has been archived and catalogued in the same manner as the other collections in its storage. Straschnoy shot photographic portraits of each of the insects, out of which a series of prints and a book have been produced.

The Dioramas of the Perm Regional Museum is a series of three-dimensional (lenticular) photographs presenting some of the stuffed animals in the collection in storage. In natural science museums, dioramas are usually three-dimensional, either scaled or natural size replicas of the habitats of certain animals. In this case in particular, these habitats do not exist anymore, most of the species in them are already extinct, so for the remaining animals it wouldn't make sense to return to them. Hence, the storage room documented by Straschnoy has become their natural biome.

A physical exhibition of the project, scheduled at Turku Art Museum, has been postponed until October 2021 due to the pandemic.

Visit Online Exclusive.
Visit Viewing Room on March 9th through the 23rd.
Catalogue.