UCL Press Release
12 May 2014, for immediate release
Digital art transforms fish bones into cosmic bodies and marine slugs in new ‘Subnature’
exhibition

A Flickr gallery of images from the exhibition can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/1sag9hB
A new art exhibition exploring the relationship between nature and its representations opens at the
Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL on 21 May 2014.
Subnature features sculptures and prints by emerging artist Lan Lan (UCL Slade School of Fine Art),
who through the manipulation of original fish bone sculptures creates contemporary phantom
creatures.
Set amongst the Museum’s historic collections of skeletons, skulls and specimens in jars, the
exhibition establishes a dialogue between natural history and its contemporary interventions –
intertwining a Victorian collection with 21st Century digital techniques.
The fantastical works take the form of cosmic bodies and marine animals, with some installations
imagining a fictional future where energy plants rely on the phantom creatures.
This exhibition marks the first public solo show by the Sculpture student Lan Lan. She has long been
curious about nature and its conversation with modern technology, often making virtual sculptures
and sublime environments from 2D and 3D scan imagery of materials.
“The journey my works have taken has been really unexpected. In a way it’s like an accelerated
evolutionary process and placing the visuals amongst the Museum’s collections really emphasises the
abstraction of the works” said Lan.
Among the 68,000 specimens held at the Grant Museum are some of the rarest extinct animal
specimens in the world. The Museum contains dodo bones, the remains of a quagga (an extinct
species of half-striped zebra) and a giant deer with antlers measuring over 3 metres across.
“It is so exciting to work with such a young artist who has taken the material we work with every day at
the Museum – bone – and reimagined it in an entirely different, yet seemingly natural way.” said Jack
Ashby, Manager of the Grant Museum.
“To marry our historic skeletons and specimens in jars with Lan Lan’s phantom creations has made
me look at our collection in new ways. We have sea slugs and worms in the Museum that could easily
pass for Lan’s digitally altered bone sculptures; the results of her alterations are incredible”.
Subnature runs from 21 May until 19 July 2014. The Grant Museum of Zoology is open from 1–5pm
Monday to Saturday. Admission is free and there is no need to book.
Notes for Editors
1. For more information or to interview Jack Ashby, please contact Siobhan Pipa in the UCL Media
Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9041, mobile: +44 07717 728 648, out of hours +44 (0)7917
271 364, e-mail: siobhan.pipa@ucl.ac.uk
2. Captions and credits for images used in this release: Mod Fish - Lan Lan, 2014 & ALTED Hydrozoa,
Lan Lan, 2014
3. For more information on images please contact the UCL Media Relations Office
4. The Museum is open to the public 1-5pm, Monday to Saturday.
5. For more information about the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology, please visit:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/zoology
6. What’s On at the Grant Museum: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/whats-on/grant_listings
7. Grant Museum blog: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/category/zoology/
8. Grant Museum on Twitter: http://twitter.com/GrantMuseum
About the Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL
The Grant Museum of Zoology, UCL is the only remaining university zoological museum in London. It houses
around 68,000 specimens, covering the whole Animal Kingdom. Founded in 1828 as a teaching collection, the
Museum is packed full of skeletons, mounted animals and specimens preserved in fluid. Many of the species
are now endangered or extinct including the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine, the quagga, and the dodo.
About the UCL Slade School of Fine Art
The Slade School of Fine Art, founded in 1871, has a world leading reputation for making significant
contributions to the field of contemporary art both nationally and internationally. The Slade approaches the
practice of contemporary art and the history and theories that inform it in an experimental, research-oriented
way. There is a lively and dynamic studio-led research culture and all studio staff are practising artists with
significant exhibition profiles, actively involved in research as well as teaching.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade | Follow us on Twitter @SladeSchool
About UCL (University College London)
Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to
admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender and the first to provide systematic teaching of law,
architecture and medicine.
We are among the world's top universities, as reflected by our performance in a range of international
rankings and tables. According to the Thomson Scientific Citation Index, UCL is the second most highly cited
European university and the 15th most highly cited in the world.
UCL has nearly 25,000 students from 150 countries and more than 9,000 employees, of whom one third are
from outside the UK. The university is based in Bloomsbury in the heart of London, but also has two
international campuses – UCL Australia and UCL Qatar. Our annual income is more than £800 million.
www.ucl.ac.uk | Follow us on Twitter @uclnews | Watch our YouTube channel YouTube.com/UCLTV