This article was taken from the November 2014 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

For Koen Vanmechelen, the chicken isn't just a farmyard animal -- it's art. Fifteen years ago, the Belgian artist began cross-breeding varieties of the world's most domesticated bird for his Cosmopolitan Chicken Project. The aims of the part-art, part-research endeavour? To promote diversity in both poultry and people.

According to Vanmechelen, 49, the domestic chicken is "already a kind of sculpture", after 7,000 years of selective breeding. "You can follow our evolution through the DNA of the chicken," he says. "In every country, there's one related to the culture. In France, the Poulet de Bresse contains the colours of the French flag. Americans breed the biggest chicken in the world. In Germany, they created one for the liberation after the second world war."

Vanmechelen began breeding chickens at the age of five after an uncle gifted him an incubator. He started the Cosmopolitan Project in 1999 by crossing a Poulet de Bresse with a Belgian Mechelse Koekoek; it is now in its 18th generation. He has worked with geneticists at the University of Leuven to sequence the genome of each generation and track changes in immunity and fertility in the bloodline. The breeds are then captured using artistic forms such as photography and 3D-printed sculpture -- and when each one dies ("I never kill a chicken") he preserves them as taxidermy.

From November 15, Vanmechelen will open an exhibition at The Crypt Gallery in London. In 2016, he will open La Biomista -- an art studio, scientific lab and open university in Genk -- to build on his study. "Many species are disappearing," he says. "We have to create more diversity to

move forward."

This article was originally published by WIRED UK