Aesthetics of Extinction investigates the complex relationship between aesthetic appreciation and species extinction through the double lens of multispecies anthropology and aesthetic theory. Commonly, extinction processes are associated with the willful killing of species or with the negligent death of other species as a by-product of processes like land transformation – as in the case, for instance, of the decline of the Eurasian skylark (sanglærke), the Willow warbler (løvsanger), and the Northern lapwing (vibe) in Denmark over the last 20 years. Meanwhile, love and aesthetic appreciation for other species, sometimes called biophilia, is usually associated with environmental conservation and care.1
This project will study an understudied extinction dynamic: when humans love other species to death. A range of amphibians, snails, cacti, tropical fish, and birds are driven to extinction because humans keep them as beloved pets or botanical companions.2
Aesthetics of Extinction is the first in-depth study into the ways in which the aesthetic appeal and charisma of certain species by specific groups of humans drive processes of extinction. Focusing on the Indonesian island of Java, the project studies the so-called “Asian Songbird Crisis”, the dramatic decline and potential extinction of dozens of species of songbirds – already under pressure from landscape transformations, habitat loss, and pesticide overuse – because they are being trapped, traded and kept as treasured pets.3
Aesthetics of Extinction addresses the broader issue of multispecies care and nonhuman charisma in environmentalism.4 As the planet hurtles towards a sixth mass extinction,5 it is critical that we explore all types of extinction, and not merely those driven by industrial destruction or carelessness. Our hypothesis is that “non-innocent care”,6 a form of care that is blind to its own violence, is a driver in some species extinction. We understand this “non-innocent care” within a comparative aesthetic and multispecies framework. The framework brings a culturally sensitive study of the aesthetics of nonhuman species into conversation with extinction studies in a novel way to understand the complicity between multispecies love, nonhuman aesthetics, and species decline.
