Pell, Rich
RICH PELL is the founder and director of the Center for PostNatural History (CPNH), an organization dedicated to the collection and exposition of life-forms that have been intentionally and heritably altered through domestication, selective breeding, tissue culture, or genetic engineering. Founded in 2008, CPNH is an independent research center with a private collection that is open to the public one day per week. Since 2 March 2012, CPNH has occupied a storefront in Pittsburgh’s Garfield neighborhood. It has been visited by thousands of people from all over the world. The Center produces traveling exhibitions that have appeared in science and art museums throughout Europe and the United States including the Victoria and Albert Museum and Wellcome Collection in London, the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, the CCCB in Barcelona, the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the 2008 Taipei Biennial, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, as well as being featured in National Geographic, Nature Magazine, American Scientist, Popular Science, and New Scientist. CPNH has been awarded a Rockefeller New Media fellowship, a Creative Capital fellowship, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, and received generous support from Waag Society and the Kindle Project. Pell is a National Academy of Science KAVLI Fellow and was awarded the 2016 Pittsburgh Artist of the Year. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
