*Fossil Futures* is an art project that traces the entangled histories and practices of museology, cultural heritage, public ownership, and digital reproduction. The artists Nikolai Nelles and Nora Al-Badri are known for using the tools of natural history museums, as well as leaked data, artificial intelligence (AI), and 3D scanning, to reimagine fossils and relics in the absence of access to real artefacts. The project asks viewers to question the authenticity of a nation’s cultural narrative and seeks to build alternative emancipatory visions using today’s easy-to-access data-driven technologies. The latest iteration of *Fossil Futures* is a complete reproduction of Tanzania’s Tendaguru Hill environment in VR that acts as a stage set for an immersive theater play written and directed by one of the artists.

Throughout the 20th century, Western Institutions have been given the role of building and safeguarding our nation's histories and cultural identities. Interested in the role these institutions played in colonising the heritage of other nations, Nelles and Badri decided to find out more about the Natural History Museum of Berlin and their Dinosaur collection. To shed light on the acquisition history of the dinosaur bones, the artists followed the routes of fossils housed in the museum’s collection and found themselves in the African bush of southern Tanzania at Tendaguru. The Tendaguru Formation are amongst the richest sites of Jurassic fossils to have ever been found. A former German colony, the beds were also spaces of systematic excavations of dinosaurs bones during the colonial era. Today, 230 tons of these dinosaur bones are now stored and partly exhibited in the Natural History Museum in Berlin. During their visits the artists spent extended periods of time with the local community and were commissioned by them to build a museum for the site. In recognition of the complexity and responsibility of this request, the artists have realised the museum through various forms and approaches.

Text: Dani Admiss, curator and researcher

Links: https://www.alloversky.com/Fossil-Futures, https://www.nora-al-badri.de/works-index#fossil-future

Made by the artists as an impression of the research/ contextualisation with a short video with the Southern Tanzanian community, Prof. WJT Mitchell Uni Chicago and Denny Gayton from Standing Rock and Ciraj Rassool from the University of Cape Town.

Support received from: Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) Berlin, Gorki Theater Berlin

Nora Al-Badri (IR/DE) is a multi-disciplinary media artist with a German-Iraqi background. She lives and works in Berlin. She graduated in political sciences from Goethe University Frankfurt. Since 2019 she is a PhD candidate at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Both artists (Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles) are represented by Nome Gallery, Berlin. They have collaborated on several projects since 2009. They are also co-curating Chaos Communication Congress (Arts & Culture Track).

Jan Nikolai Nelles (DE) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Berlin. He graduated from Offenbach University of Art and Design in 2011. His artistic practice oscillates between media art, documentary filmmaking, and cultural activism. Both artists (Nora Al-Badri and Jan Nikolai Nelles) are represented by Nome Gallery, Berlin. They have collaborated on several projects since 2009. They are also co-curating Chaos Communication Congress (Arts & Culture Track).