55 years ago Francesco Baschieri Salvadori, biologist and assistant director of the Rome Zoo together with Pier Lorenzo Florio, published their book ‘Animal Che Scompaiono’. In this book 144 animals were illustrated by Piero Gozzaglio and shows that of the 144 animals, 132 were threatened in their existence, and 12 were already extinct. Already then the book was meant as a warning, as a signal.

It is this book that lay at the base of Raf’s interests in his youth and created deep awareness of the pace of which animals are getting extinct in our life-time in our chase for progress.

Crossing =Rubrum= show a body of work that refers to the  Red Data List of the IUCN and the animals described in Salvadori’s book. Questions like, at which point did we all cross that Rubicon or made the irreversible act from which we as a specie can not recover, lay central in the artwork of this expo