In 2013, we were awarded a major public art commission by the University of Cambridge to explore and respond to research themes undertaken by the Department of Zoology and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. Next year we will realise a series of artworks, both permanent and temporary for the opening of the new David Attenborough Building and its development as a ‘conservation campus’ on the New Museums Site. The exhibition aims to build awareness and develop engagement with a broader audience to the New Museums Site and the activity taking place within the redeveloped building.
In March 2016, we’ll be presenting a temporary exhibition, Conflicted Seeds + Spirit, in the David Attenborough Building. A series of new works will interplay between unique elements that draw on and amplify the haunting strangeness of museum specimens preserved in alcoholic spirit, against the tender life-force of global tree saplings undergoing conservation programmes (grown through the facilities of Cambridge University Botanic Garden), a short film and the artists’ iconic Stranded artwork, a 6m long crystallised whale skeleton. These works reveal the risks at stake in our planetary crisis and the hope that can be found in the connectivity of conservation.
See the exhibition website for details.
www.conflictedseeds.com
