The former US soldier, who in 2013 was imprisoned in violation of the Espionage Act, will premiere a collaborative series of 3D portraits in New York

Chelsea Manning is to showcase an exhibition at New York’s Fridman Gallery in collaboration with the artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg.

Manning, who was released from prison last month after being sentenced in violation of the Espionage Act for disclosing classified government documents to WikiLeaks in 2013, will share A Becoming Resemblance from 2 August until 5 September. An announcement from the gallery said the exhibit would investigate “emerging technologies of genomic identity construction and our societal moment”, using cheek swabs and hair clippings Manning sent Dewey-Hagborg while she was in prison. Dewey-Hagborg used these DNA samples to create 3D-printed portraits of Manning, whose face was concealed from public view until her release on 17 May.

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Manning, a trans woman who has identified as female since childhood, and whose 35-year sentence was commuted by Barack Obama in January, described the exhibition in a statement to the gallery.

“Prisons try very hard to make us inhuman and unreal by denying our image, and thus our existence, to the rest of the world,” Manning explained. “Imagery has become a kind of proof of existence. The use of DNA in art provides a cutting edge and a very post-modern – almost ‘post-post-modern’ – analysis of thought, identity, and expression. It combines chemistry, biology, information, and our ideas of beauty and identity.”

The exhibition, which also includes a series titled Suppressed Images, a comic book collaboration between Manning and the illustrator Shoili Kanungo, was curated by Roddy Schrock. Manning made headlines last week after attending Pride festivities in New York City, where during the annual parade she appeared on a float sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union. A Becoming Resemblance will feature 30 3D portraits of Manning as well as an installation called Probably Chelsea, which interrogates the different ways DNA can be interpreted.

