The Unnatural Museum by Ana Maria Surdu opens at LHQ Gallery, Cork County Council on Thursday the 5th of September with a reception at 6pm and runs until Friday the 11th of October 2024. Please join us to celebrate the occassion.
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.
Mayor of County Cork, Cllr. Joe Carroll said, “This exhibition is saying something vital about the world we live in. Ana Maria Surdu’s works demonstrate how our environment has changed with manmade materials and highlights how we all need to act together to protect our natural environment.”
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.
Ana Maria Surdu is an environmental artist living in West Cork. She is the recipient of Cork County Council’s 2023 Crawford Graduate award which has supported her to develop this new body of work. LHQ Gallery, Cork County Library, Carrigrohane Road, Cork is open Monday to Friday 9am-5.30pm.