Anatomy Lessons

Image: Michele Beevors, Epitaph (with trunk).

Striking and ethereal, Anatomy Lessons features life-sized skeletons meticulously sculpted and hand-knitted to haunting effect, inviting us to reflect on our place within the fragile web of life and death.

From a towering 4.4-metre giraffe to an assembly of 50 intricately rendered frogs, each skeleton has been crafted from steel, wire, and foam, then entirely enveloped in hand-knitting – a fine-art softening of the anatomy beneath. 

Seventeen years in the making, the exhibition traces a process that is as meditative as it is exacting: beginning with studies of bones in museum collections, through to sculpting and articulating forms, and culminating in thousands of hours of knitting. 

Created by artist Michele Beevors, Anatomy Lessons is a quiet, tactile protest – a gentle but powerful call to recognise the violence humans inflict upon other animals, and to reconsider the patterns of behaviour that sustain it. 

 

Museum at Inveresk

20 December 2025 – 7 June 2026

Free entry

Knit a Frog: A participatory knitting project

Image: Michele Beevors, The Last Plague [detail] 2016. Image: QVMAG.

In her sculpture The Last Plague, artist Michele Beevors features black and white frogs as an epitaph for the mass loss of these creatures worldwide due to human intervention.

You are warmly invited to add your own knitted frog to the exhibition, made in any colour you like.

Work on your frog at home, using the worksheet linked below. Or, join us onsite in the QVMAG Friends Lounge, where you can knit at your own leisure or join a free Tiny Knitting Circle session, led by Edwina Brown (QVMAG Friends Committee Member). Scroll down to view the next session and reserve your free spot.

You are also welcome to join us on Friday 22 May at 11am at the Museum at Inveresk, when all frogs will be added to the display.

Download the Knit-a-Frog worksheet(PDF, 2MB)