rotifer (a)live

Rotifers are fascinating multicellular animals evolving on Earth for more than sixty million years. Though smaller than a millimeter, they represent a scandal in evolutionary biology: asexual females clone themselves without any intervention of males.

Moreover, these small organisms are extremely stress tolerant. They can resist to various stresses such as desiccation, radiation and freezing. Recently, scientists were able to revive rotifers that had been slumbering in the Arctic permafrost for 24,000 years. These microscopic superwomen raise challenging and inspiring questions for science.

Rotifer (a)live provides insight into the fascinating experiments and findings that researchers conduct on this matter on a daily basis. Shaped as an oversized scientific set-up, this installation takes the visitor on a journey into the world of research labs. Displayed in a retro futuristic arrangement, Rotifer (a)live combines scientific instruments and artworks. Omnipresent in this lab-like organized mess, the green leaf color provides a visual contrast that echoes the rotifers’ favorite food: salad juice.

This installation also shows the high-tech aerospace modules that transported rotifers back and forth to the International Space Station (ISS), as part of the Rotifer In SpacE-program (RISE), which studies rotifers to develop new models in space research. In addition to colorful microscopic photographs, lab pipettes, hand-drawn illustrations and Erlenmeyer flasks, this set–up mainly contains the rotifers themselves. So feel free to take a look at the microscope and projected lab footage to see live how rotifers come alive, how they behave, how they evolve.