The exhibition will be on show at the Museum of English Rural Life which had viral success with an absolute unit sheep

By Hugh Fort

Some of Maria Mckinney's work. Credit:University of Reading

Straws originally used to artificially inseminate cattle have been turned into works of art which will be displayed in Reading.

Artist Maria McKinney has used the straws to create the exhibits at the Sire Exhibition, which will launch at the Museum of English Rural Life (The MERL) at the University of Reading in February.

The sculptures show things like protein and DNA structures, and reference breeding techniques used by farmer for nearly 200 years.

Ms McKinney was inspired by collections of 18th and 19th century livestock in the museum's collections, which exaggerated the features bred into the animals and turned them into 'the first viral celebrities'.

Her sculptures were mounted on to the back of live bulls which then had their photographs taken to recreate the style of the original images.



One of the exhibits. Credit:University of Reading

Those pictures will also be on display.

She said: "It was essential for me that the sculptures communicated something about the lived reality of these bulls. And the reality is their entire lives are shaped around human consumption.

"Their bodies enter our bodies through this consumption of meat and dairy. So having their bodies as an intrinsic element of the work was my reason for putting the sculptures on them.”

She started the project after visiting in 2015 and the exhibition will be the only chance to see the artwork in the archives that inspired it.

The Sire Exhibition lasts from Tuesday, February 5, until Sunday, May 5.

The international fame The MERL has found recently through its 'absolute unit’ tweet of a large ram, and other farming-themed items it has shared on Twitter, also made the museum an apt place for the artist to exhibit.

A free In Conversation event with Ms McKinney takes place on February 5 to mark the opening of the exhibition.

More information can be found here.