Austin Cullen

As a child, Austin Cullen became fascinated with the extravagant ways in which natural history museums framed the American landscape. A Natural History (Built to be Seen) catalogues how the natural world is presented and constructed within museums, including dramatic dioramas, interactive virtual experiences and miniaturised landscapes. These depictions all act as windows into the natural environment and as a guide for reading and understanding nature, but in the process they also say something about the complex and ever-changing relationship between people and land. Museums teach us about our environment, but they often separate us from it too. In a global climate crisis, it’s imperative to reassess our understanding of nature. By creating images that subvert viewers’ ideas of what’s natural and what’s not, Cullen asks his audience to recognise how museum displays influence conceptions of the larger natural world.