This year where Charles Darwin would have turned 200 years old, and where his book the “The Origin of Species” was published 150 years ago, links Indonesia which was on the brink to be further discovered, to the world and our nature today. During his travels Charles Darwin concluded that all species developed from common ancestors by a process of “natural selection”, called “Evolution”.  The ascent of all species through time can be seen as a metaphor he termed the “Tree of Life”.

The biodiversity or variation of species in Indonesia today is the result of evolution in the Indonesian Archipelago and due the relative isolation of many of its islands in terms of geographical history, it is rich and includes many endemic species, those native to a particular environment which can only be found in specific places.

Original drawings of threatened species in Indonesia - the work of Piet Eggen of the Netherlands and Agus Prijono of Indonesia - will be shown against a background of issues related to the evolution of species as stated by Darwin and the geological history of the world up to the present.

The aim and challenge of this exhibition will be to link the existence of species the biodiversity they display to our daily lives. It will pose the question about diversity and in what way it is essential in order for all species to survive changes posed by nature itself as well as the more recent man-made threats. Organized lives and modern livelihoods make humanity face the fact that living becomes more and more artificial whereby the aspects which are the backbone of resilience of species, its biodiversity, are neglected often out of ignorance.