Collaboration with Forrest Perrine | Actualize AiR, Seattle, WA | 2026

Mary Anne Carter and Forrest Perrine present The Museum of Natural Beauty, an interactive installation that examines the lineage of beautiful objects through the lens of a miniature natural history museum. Carter and Perrine dismantle long-held societal prescriptions of “function” to reveal the inherent purity of decoration.

Viewers will encounter a series of studies revealing alternative origin stories: the basketball net, chain link fence, paper clip, feather duster, corn, hair, French horn, and iPod.

Together, these narratives invite audiences to consider beauty not as a byproduct of utility, but as its precursor.