The _Center for PostNatural History_ is a public outreach organization that examines the changing relationship between culture, nature and biotechnology. The postnatural refers to the life forms that have been intentionally altered by humans through domestication, selective breeding and genetic engineering. This expansive definition begins with the origination of agriculture and the domestication of animals, and today includes genetic engineering, industrial food production, indoor horticulture, ecosystem engineering, hobby pet breeders, biological weapons programs, gene therapy, reproductive control methodology, biofactory silk production, ballistic pumpkin cultivation, flu vaccines and synthetic biology to name just a few. In an effort to catalog this rapidly changing landscape, the CPNH maintains a collection of living, preserved and documented specimens of PostNatural origin.

The _Center for PostNatural History_ is currently opening a permanent exhibition facility for this collection and the related exhibitions that address the wide range of postnatural organisms that exist today. This facility is the first biological exhibit space of its kind, with a mandate to exhibit only life forms that have been intentionally altered by humans. In this way, the CPNH is encouraging the viewing of human culture through the lens of the living; the cultural footprint within the biological. The facility houses the CPNH’s existing specimen collection, consisting of hundreds of samples of genetically and developmentally modified insects, plants, worms, bacteria and fish. Additionally, thematic exhibits utilize video, stereoscopic macro photography, taxidermy and dioramas to engage the complex cultural landscape of postnatural life. The _Center for PostNatural History_ is open Sundays and by appointment.


Links: http://www.postnatural.org/

Since 2008, the _Center for PostNatural History_ has mounted numerous exhibitions that address the concept of the postnatural from a range of vantage points. Exhibits such as “Transgenic Organisms of New York State”, “Permitted Habitats” and “Strategies in Genetic Copy Prevention”, have been exhibited in the United States, Europe and Australia. Researchers from the CPNH were selected for a 2010 Smithsonian Artist in Residence Fellowship, a 2009 Creative Capital Foundation Fellowship and a 2007 Rockefeller New Media Fellowship and are regularly invited to serve as judges at the annual International Genetically Engineered Machines competition. The CPNH has opened its first permanent exhibition facility in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May 2011.