Since approximately 10 years Koen Vanmechelen is mainly engaged in his gigantic chicken breeding project The Cosmopolitan Chicken. In this solo-exhibition, his fourth at Deweer Art Gallery, he made an overview of the whole project since its beginnings and combined it with a live presentation of the last, recently born generation. The Cosmopolitan Chicken is a worldwide breeding project to which the crossbreeding of different national chicken races is central and crucial. The crossbreeding is the metaphorical quintessence of the dynamic, fertile and creative life and of the peaceful living together of different species and races. The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project officially started in 2000 in Watou (BE). As his participation in the exhibition Storm Centers, curated by Jan Hoet, Koen Vanmechelen crossbred the Belgian chicken Mechelse Koekoek (Cuckoo of Malines) with the French pride Poulet de Bresse, creating the first generation, the Mechelse Bresse. And Vanmechelen went on. Until now, The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project has produced ten generations. The descendants of each crossing are named after the first generation and the new race that is brought in. For example the eighth generation, the 'Mechelse Fighters', was crossbred with the Brazilian Auracana to create the nineth generation called 'Mechelse Auracana'. Recently, Koen Vanmechelen has crossbred the Mechelse Auracana with a Turkish chicken called the Denizli longcrower. The resulting generation, the Mechelse Denizli, is on display in this exhibition. The first animal that reaches adulthood will be portrayed and when it has died a natural death it will be stuffed to testifie of it's new generation, all of which was also the case with its predecessors. The Cosmopolitan Chicken is an artistic and aesthetic project that not only touches a lot of contemporary social issues such as genetic manipulation, cloning, globalisation, multiraciality, multicultural society, and so on, but also tries to influence the debate on these themes from an artistic and humanitarian point of view. Although the artist has a lot of inspiring contacts with the medical and scientific world, the Cosmopolitan Chicken Project has found its ideal setting in the art world.