Becoming Bonobo: On Modeling a Species
Hannah Kressig’s project asks how the bonobo has been conceptualized as a species different from the common chimpanzee and as a model for human evolution over the past hundred years.
Almost a century has passed since bonobos were first described as a distinct species, but it was not until the 1990s that they gained popularity as matriarchal “hippie apes.” They continue to be invoked as an alternative evolutionary model to chimpanzees, based on cooperation rather than competition and serving as an image of hope for a peaceful humankind.
To understand how the identity of bonobos was created, and how questions about human nature were negotiated in that process, Hannah investigates museums, zoos, laboratories, and field stations as key sites for researching and preserving bonobos as both a species and an object of knowledge. Analyzing publications, archival sources, and oral histories, she examines the practices and politics through which we define our closest kin and, at the same time, continually redefine ourselves.
Hannah holds a BSc in interdisciplinary sciences and an MA in the history and philosophy of knowledge from ETH Zurich. She wrote her master’s thesis on the great ape specimens of the Naturmuseum Winterthur, where she worked during her studies.
Publications & Presentations
Articles
Kressig, Hannah (2023). “Coal-Truck Variations.” In: Delirium 14: 42–49. https://delirium-magazin.ch/section/search/kressig/coal-truck-variations.
Kressig, Hannah (2021). “Auf den Denkspuren der Schleimpilze.” In: Entropie Blog. https://entropie.ethz.ch/auf-den-denkspuren-der-schleimpilze/.
Kressig, Hannah (2020). “Die Klimakatastrophe zwischen Science und Fiction.” In: Entropie Blog. https://entropie.ethz.ch/die-klimakatastrophe-zwischen-science-und-fiction/.
Contributing editor
Feyerabend, Paul. Historische Wurzeln moderner Probleme: Vorlesung an der ETH Zürich 1985. Edited by Michael Hagner and Michael Hampe in cooperation with Hannah Kressig and Anna Morawietz. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2023.
Presentations
May 2024: “Endstation Hotel Banana City: Die Menschenaffenpräparate des Naturmuseums Winterthur.” International Museum Day, Naturmuseum Winterthur.
Image 1: Documentation of the taxidermy process of a bonobo group mounted by Kurt Küng at the Natural History Museum Bern for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair (© Archive of the Natural History Museum Bern).
Image 2: Illustration of a comparison between a bonobo and an Australopithecus (© Adrienne L. Zihlman (1982), The Human Evolution Coloring Book, New York: HarperCollins, 105/106).
Image 3: The alleged chimpanzee but actual bonobo ‘Prince Chim,’ who was bought and studied by Robert Yerkes in 1923, before the bonobo was discovered as a distinct species. (© Robert M. Yerkes (1925), Almost Human, New York: The Century Co., 140/141).