A knitted natural history

Over in Dunedin in the south of the South Island of New Zealand an artist has been working to create sculptures of animal skeletons with knitting. 

Michele Beevors has always been fascinated by the natural world and during her childhood in Australia the family had lots of different types of pet. When Michele moved to Dunedin to take up a post at the Otago Art School, the Animal Attic in the Otago Museum, a collection of Victorian specimens, proved to be a useful place to visit for drawing. These visits inspired the artist to start research into other collections and, from there, the idea to create a zoological museum of knitted skeletons emerged. Now a life size knitted giraffe, gorillas and frogs share the space that inspired their making. You can hear more about the work and sculptor in this Radio New Zealand piece, and see some photographs of the artist's studio with the soft sculptures on the RNZ website here. 

Anatomy Lessons is on until July 24th at Tuhura Otago Museum. If any of our readers do manage to get to it, please send in photos so that we can share them.