Exhibition — 2026 — Lisbon

ANTROPO(CÉNICO)

No tempo dos humanos — In the time of humans

Venue

Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa

Opening

29 May 2026 — long-term exhibition

Work

Commissioned, site-specific piece by Nature the Artist

Nature the Artist fossil piece behind the mammal installation, MUHNAC

The work

A fossil of our time

Nature the Artist was invited to create a piece specifically for ANTROPO(CÉNICO), and it is the work that closes the exhibition.

Conceived as an archaeological find from a distant future, it preserves the image of a petrol pump — the emblem of the fossil-fuel age — as if it had been unearthed long after us. Seen from that imagined future, the piece sends us back to the present and asks what our era will leave inscribed in the history of the planet.

Fossil of a petrol pump, Nature the Artist, 2026
Detail: GASOLINE inscription and pump countersDetail: top of the fossilised petrol pump and hose
The piece next to fossils from the great mass extinctions
The piece shares its display with fossils from the great mass extinctions — Ordovician, Late Devonian, Permian, Triassic, Cretaceous — extending the timeline into the present.

Are we a part, or apart?

Fazemos parte ou estamos à parte?

The exhibition

An artificial forest

At the centre of the room, around ninety mammals from across the world rise on a white modular structure: vertical pillars act as trunks, and rotating “branches” can be repositioned for each animal. The mechanics stay visible, so the precision of the structure plays against the organic forms of the animals — an installation that interprets nature rather than recreating it.

Visitors walk around it as if circling a clearing, observing the animals and being observed in return. Short texts appear along the way as thoughts and questions rather than answers, and a fragment of trinitite, formed in the first atomic bomb test, stands as material evidence of humanity’s power to transform the Earth.

The artificial forest of mammals under the question Fazemos parte ou estamos à parte?
Are we a part or apart? — central installationThe fossil piece seen through the forest of animals
ANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation viewANTROPO(CÉNICO) installation view

Opening night

Opening of ANTROPO(CÉNICO), 29 May 2026Opening of ANTROPO(CÉNICO), 29 May 2026Opening of ANTROPO(CÉNICO), 29 May 2026Opening of ANTROPO(CÉNICO), 29 May 2026

Artwork

Nature the Artist

Exhibition

ANTROPO(CÉNICO) — No tempo dos humanos
Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa

Creative direction

Nuno Gusmão

Design

Giuseppe Greco
Jacinta Fialho

Photography

Miguel Portelinha (artwork)
João Ricardo Costa — @joao_ricardo_costa