NEXT OF KIN EXHIBITION

In 2016 Seely was invited by the Harvard Museum of Natural History to create a series of new works in conversation with the museum collections and to produce a multi-part exhibition focused on an emotional understanding of the pressing topic of species extinction. The invitation evolved into the exhibition entitled Next of Kin: Seeing Extinction Through The Artist’s Lens made up of new works; the Next of Kin portraits, a set of large-scale kinetic reflective portraits of endangered species found in the museum’s collection, accompanied by; Species Impact, a set of ten daguerreotype portraits of species impacted by climate change that the artist photographed in the wild between 2012-2016; as well as a series of discrete sculptural installations and audio designed and created in collaboration with the Canary Project, focus on the last traces of extinct species using specimen drawn from the archives in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. These objects, in conversation with the portraits, are displayed in unusual ways, allowing their emotional impact to unfold as they are considered from new perspectives as part of an experiential dialogue with the topic.