Identifying Genitalic Extravagance and Imagining a Museum as a Means of Investigating and Communicating Strangeness in Animal Reproductive Morphology

The common-sense function of male genitalia is that of gamete transfer: in one way or another the male places his sperm inside the female, where they can then fertilise her eggs.  But when one looks at the extraordinary complexity of male genitalia of a species like the chicken flea … for example, this simple explanation seems inadequate.  In many species the male genitalia are structurally the most complex organs in his entire body; in some they are also incredibly large, as in some nematodes and flies, whose intromittent organs are longer than the rest of the body.  It is just too fantastic to believe that such complicated machinery is necessary only to perform a mechanically simple function.

                                                                                                                 William Eberhard

This talk will focus on my project MoCO: Museum of Copulatory Organs, exhibited at the 2012 Biennale of Sydney, and the PhD Thesis that accompanied titled The Aesthetics of Reproductive Morphologies.

María Fernanda Cardoso (born 1963) is a Colombian Australian artist. Her art references many types of ready-made materials including plastic, trash, plants, dried and living animals, bones and Styrofoam. Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally. She resides in Sydney.