Process

Video

The Menagerie of Eternal Life

2006
Assemblage with salt crystals containing dormant living bacteria, including the 250 million year old 2-9-3 strain, which is the oldest known living thing in the world
25 x 32 x 3 inches
Collection of Hayes Barnard

For years, I wanted to do a piece that would incorporate some form of life that could survive for a very long time within an enclosed environment. The idea to use lichen or spores came up, among others. Researching on the Internet, I read about the discovery of a salt crystal pulled from a mine in New Mexico containing the oldest living thing ever found on the planet. In 2000, a colony of bacteria some 250 million years old was released from its dormant suspension, successfully reanimated and began to multiply. A shot in the dark, I contacted Dr. Russell Vreeland and his associate Dr. William Rosenzweig of West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania—the biologists who discovered the three-inch-in-diameter salt crystal. Dr. Vreeland was interested in the project and, to my delight, offered me clones grown from the specimen but was leery about giving me anything from the original “2-9-3” crystal. Several conversations and e-mails later, I received a package in the mail containing not only clones, but samples from other locations with 250 and 412 million year old DNA content and a few small chips from the original sample! It took me all day to calm down.