Reflective Encounters

“Charles Darwin’s work gave us a greater awareness of the natural world and our place in it, yet the influence of his ideas haven't always been benign. Social Darwinism and eugenics have found justification in his ideas, regardless of the distortions necessary to make them. Through a story about Darwin’s chance encounter with three Indigenous people who were kidnapped from their home in Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America and sent to Europe, Darwin’s Notebook implicitly interrogates Darwin’s place within Western culture.

This short is made up of stories within stories to convey a sense of shared culture. Speech bubbles from the Indigenous peoples become windows through which Darwin, and the audience, witness their story. At one point while in Europe, the trio are told about the foundational stories of Judeo-Christian culture such as Adam and Eve. In the world of the film, Darwin is just a young man on a ship, but to us as a modern audience he is an icon affixed to the wall of Western Culture like Michelango’s Creation of Adam. The hand-painted look of the animation reminds us of the physical bodies that make culture, both Western and Indigenous, emphasising a shared humanity. Yet the film’s interrogation of Western culture does not shy away from the genocide it brought about and continues to justify to itself.”

— Cathy Brennan