Anicka Yi Skeletons All The Way Down, 2024

Consisting of a high density foam panel with lustrous chrome finish, Anicka Yi's wall-mounted panel imagines an paleontological archeological find.

The overlapping, smothering, cross hatching forms of the Precambrian Panels imagine the wild short-lived pathways of early evolution on the planet. Within these panels we see evolution in more reckless ways: beginning, abandoning, and short circuiting in delirious directions. Coated with a distressed chrome effect invoking machines of the industrial age, the Precambrian Panels clash ancient and modern fossil records.

Today the intense global production of plastic and consumer electronics has begun to alter the geological record, leaving a series of “techno fossils” as well as new types of rock, such as “Fordite” and “plastiglomerate.” The Precambrian Panels juxtapose this legacy of human activity in the Anthropocene epoch with fossilized traces of ancient and often abandoned evolutionary trajectories.

The Precambrian epoch marks Earth’s formation 4.6 billion years ago and represents more than 80 per cent of the geological record. During this era, Earth's earliest life forms embarked on peculiar and enigmatic evolutionary ventures, giving rise to an eccentric cast of ancient characters. These earliest evolutionary pathways, marked by divergences and abrupt endings, resemble so many abandoned experiments or preparatory sketches.