Koen Vanmechelen

Koen Vanmechelen is a Belgian interdisciplinary artist who began his career in the early 1990s. He is a self-taught artist; he studied hotel management in Antwerp and worked as a cook for several years. His first works consisted mainly of wooden constructions and cages for birds. He evolved into a conceptual and multi-, trans- and interdisciplinary artist. Central to his oeuvre is the interaction between art and science and the concept of bio-cultural diversity, which he investigates through the chicken and its ancestral species. Vanmechelen is best known for his Cosmopolitan Chicken Project which aims to create a hybrid of all races of chicken in the world. In 2013 he received the Golden Nica Hybrid Art for this project. For his work he uses innovative technologies such as 3D-printing. He is professionally based in Hasselt, Belgium. Vanmechelen has presented his work all over the world in solo and group exhibitions.