The animal wants to survive. The animal wants to fulfill its (innate) life purpose. Spanning all history, the animal evolved in response to that purpose. Evolution happening now is in response to an environment that has been contaminated by humanity. The anthroposcene has permeated the environment. Phenotype plasticity involves trait changes in organisms based on environmental variations like temperature, predators, and diet. With the instability of increasing global warming, this plasticity is needed in order for animals to adapt and survive in the anthropocene. 

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Wangechi Mutu’s exhibition “I Am Speaking, Are You Listening?” at the Legion of Honor imagines alternate futures through mythological and hybrid bodies. The alternate futures she portrays are ones in which godlike guardians present  themselves as combinations of the human body with plant and animal forms. In the context of survival, Mutu’s sculptures in this series employ alternate mythologies of evolution in order to protect ancestral humanity. Speaking about the role of this mythology to create change, the curator of the exhibition, Claudia Schmuckli, said that “We’re hungry for mythologies. We need new mythologies to envision better worlds, and Wangechi is a very powerful mythmaker in that sense. Not only drawing on the mimetic qualities of art history to turn them inside out, but to offer a different vision of coexistence of being in the world.” 1 Mutu’s work connects survival through mythological evolution. Her alternate future focuses not only on survival, but also on creating a new framework where marginalized people can thrive. Her approach is less evolution in reaction to the current environment, but more of an afrofuturist transforming of the past in order to change the state of the present.