Silicone stem cells aren’t something you expect to see at the tranquil Frye Museum. But there they are in Patricia Piccinini’s exhibit Hug, along with her other sculptures of creatures you just kinda recognize—which ask us, as Carrie E.A. Scott wrote in our Fall Arts guide, “to consider the ways in which humans and animals will change as a result of biotechnological intervention.” The premonitions aren’t exactly comforting, but they’ve undoubtedly touched the collective consciousness. In tonight’s New Works Reading, author Stacey Levine presents new prose inspired by Piccinini’s art (while former Hugo House founding director Frances McCue reflects on Franz von Stuck’s sumptuous Sin). As the writers connect the thematic and stylistic dots between their work and the visual art on display, it might get you thinking about creations of your own.

Thu., Sept. 27, 7 p.m., 2007