IN a world of GMO crops, cell-based meat and designer babies, Patricia Piccinini’s sculptural art shouldn’t seem all that strange to us. But they do look surreal. An orangutan mother nursing a human child. A girl surrounded by mushroom-headed bats. A child playing with a creature with long claws. A human mother cradling a chimerical baby.  

At first, they appear like scenes from a cult horror or sci-fi movie, in which terrifying creatures from outer space invade earth and take over human bodies, turning us into waddling mutants. But one quickly realises Piccinini’s vision isn’t as nightmarish as these.