Tag: animals
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Murmuration of Starlings
A huge mass of black sweeps across the sky; surging, swirling and constantly changing form. This is a murmuration of starlings, an extraordinary natural phenomenon seen in the autumn and winter months. Such spectacular sights used to be more common when the birds flocked in greater numbers – in 1799, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge…
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I, The Thing in the Margins
It’s the sound that provides the first clue of something amiss. The loud, low growl of audio feedback fills a room already awash with bright green glare. Sitting upright in a shabby armchair is an inscrutable figure. Both feet rest evenly on the ground. Both arms rest evenly on the chair. Its head is turned…
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The Death of a Beautiful Subject
The Death of a Beautiful Subject is a multidisciplinary project by artist Sophy Rickett, which takes as its starting point a series of butterfly photographs taken by the artist’s father. As in previous projects, Rickett examines issues around collaboration and ownership, and encounters between humans, each other, and the natural world. Quiet and poignant and…
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The Barometer of My Heart
On 20th February 2002, at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), in Paris, philosopher Jacques Derrida asked an audience of students the following question: “The phallus, I mean, the phallos, is it proper to man?” This question opened the eighth session of a series of lectures given by Derrida between 2001 and…
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Finite and Alive
It’s rare for me to write about artists whose work I have never seen face to face. It’s hard to respond through a screen to something created to be viewed up close. But that’s not to say it’s not possible. Besides, however near your nose is to the glass, there is always a distance between…
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The Decomposition of Cetaceans
Working as a whale-watching guide offers many perks. I get to see live whales regularly, photograph them, and share the joy of encountering these giants. Over the last two years I have dedicated much time to working with cetaceans in Húsavík, northern Iceland. But there is one thing that can dampen the experience for many…
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Hvalreki
Hvalreki is an installation piece, which explores and interrogates human relationships with whales through their residual bones. The work began through a personal interest in the history that links us humans to the mammals that inhabit the sea. It came about after spending four months in Húsavík, Northern Iceland; exploring the research done by whale…
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A Fixed Vocabulary
Is there a word for arriving home after a hot day and finding the place changed, as if everything has been picked up for inspection and put back down in a different spot? What is the word for being surprised by how high the weeds on the train line have grown? What is the word…
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Binbag, Pavement Tree, Chainlink Fence
Dandelions poking through a chainlink fence; brambles sprouting from an unknown corner; a binbag gashed open, spewing out its contents; scattered leaves; a dead fly. Mimei Thompson paints the everyday and the overlooked. She imbues commonplace subject matter with a sense of strangeness. She works fast, with transclucent oil paint on very smooth, white, non-absorbent…
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Clearing and Cleaning
Through time, and with use, objects become imbued with memories. To tidy them away is to erase the past. Over the past few months, artist John Carroll has been making a series of still-life drawings based around the kitchen table at his home in Manchester. The table tends to be a focal point in the…
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Connswater
Our river wasn’t a clean river, a mountain stream, a babbling brook, or a silver girl. It was a filthy river, a city river, forsaken, neglected. Long gone, the glory days, when it was thick with trout and where, according to my father, King Billy watered his horses on his way to the Boyne;…