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The Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies will host an opening reception for “Medusa’s Bestiary: Embodiments & Ecologies,” a Renaissance of the Earth exhibit, on Saturday, Sept. 26 from 1-3 p.m., with an artist’s talk at 2 p.m.

Curated by Artist in Residence Lauren Levato Coyne and inspired by early modern naturalists, fabulists and artists, “Medusa’s Bestiary” explores and documents the speculative ecosystems generated from Medusa’s abandoned body. Instead of the fabled garden of stone statues, this New Gorgonia is home to a host of flora and fauna including hybrids, mutants, and monsters. Following in the footsteps of early naturalists and mythmakers alike, Levato Coyne’s work proposes that Medusa’s body continued to produce what Charles Darwin called, “Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful,” giving rise to an entire ecosystem—Gorgonian in lineage—that is still unfolding today.

The Renaissance of the Earth revolutionizes what it means to think with the early modern past about our environmental future. Through a range of cross-disciplinary collaborative models, it puts students, artists, and scholars at the center of an interdisciplinary research mandate with the goal of discovering diverse avenues for creating sustainable and equitable life.

“Medusa’s Bestiary: Embodiments & Ecologies” is on display now through Spring 2027. The Renaissance Center, located at 650 E. Pleasant Street, Amherst, is open weekdays from 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

More information can be found on the Renaissance Center website.