The Unnatural Museum opens at LHQ Gallery

A new exhibition exploring the impact of plastics and reimagining how our natural world might be studied by future generations opens at Cork County Council’s LHQ Gallery next week. The Unnatural Museum by Ana Maria Surdu opens on Thursday the 5th of September at 6pm, and runs from Friday the 6th of September until Friday, the 11th of October. 

The collection of environmental art pieces, featuring objects made using ceramic, glass and from materials found on West Cork beaches, will be displayed in lit cabinets like Natural History Museums exhibits around the world.  

Through her exhibition, Ana Maria Surdu questions how plastics and microplastics found in our water, soil and organisms will be represented in the geology of the future. She wonders if bottle caps will be the markers of our current geological period the way fossilised marine organisms were the markers of the Cambrian period more than 500 million years ago.  

The exhibition features mass-produced objects washed up by the sea mingled with natural wonder, prints made by the sun and items where roots of grasses have grown on discarded plastic such as the bottom of a pair of rubber-soled shoes. Each object is labelled and archived appropriating the scientific methods of a natural history museum. 

The Unnatural Museum by Ana Maria Surdu opens at LHQ Gallery on Thursday the 5th of September with a reception at 6pm and runs until Friday the 11th of October 2024. LHQ Gallery, Cork County Library, Carrigrohane Road, Cork is open Monday to Friday 9am-5.30pm.  

For more information visit corkcoco.ie