Animalia Paradoxa (2025)

In the influential 1735 work Systema Naturæ, Carl Linnaeus developed a system for classifying “nature” into three kingdoms: animal, vegetable and mineral. However, only in the first five editions of this book did the Swedish biologist include an imprecise group composed of imaginary beings, which he called Animalia Paradoxa (Linnæi 1740 [1735]: 65-66). This essay addresses a group of similarly imaginary and contradictory beings, crafted in clay by artisans from the Barcelos region, and seeks to explore methodologies of correspondence between the ethnographic creation process and that of these creatures. I begin by observing the sensorial and haptic aspect of clay figurative practice, questioning what other methods, beyond the ethnographic, can apprehend the work of the barristas and the entities they invent with clay. I conclude that artistic practice — and specifically drawing — can foster an approximation to the imaginative gesture of clay modelling performed by these artisans.

Article published in the Agora Forum, Etnográfica magazine.
Reference: Ribeiro, Sónia Mota. 2025. «Animalia Paradoxa», Forum Agora, Etnográfica.

Drawings and photographs
© Sónia Mota Ribeiro

See the full article (in portuguese) here.