Bird
Year: 2023
We often look to birds to represent our dreams of flight and freedom. They carry the weight of our longing effortlessly, and grace our skies and days with their songs and elegance. BIRD is a celebration of all birdlife. It explores the richness these feathered denizens of the air manifest, while planning ways to urgently protect them from Climate Emergency impacts.
CURATOR STATEMENT
Birds are the easiest wild animals to see. They are beautiful. We often look to them to represent our dreams of flight and freedom. They carry the weight of our longing effortlessly, and grace our skies and days with their songs and elegance. Birds are also bio-indicators, meaning that their decline flags the general degradation of the environment. Birds are the literal ‘canaries in the coalmine’. Currently one in six Australian birds is already threatened (and more than one in eight worldwide) and this number is predicted to rise as the anthropogenic climate crisis worsens. Humans evolved with birds and our health, wellbeing and ultimate survival is profoundly tied to theirs. Research shows that even just hearing birds improves human mental health. Protecting birds and their specific habitats is as urgent and vital for us as it obviously is for them. BIRD was a celebration of all birdlife. The exhibition celebrated the richness of these feathered denizens of the air manifest, while encouraging urgent action to protect them from Climate Emergency impacts.
ARTIST
Graham Badari, Alexis Beckett, The Bowerbird Collective, Beth Croce, Kate Gorringe-Smith, Heather Hesterman, Eugenia Lim, Lucille Martin, Jenny McCracken, Rachel Mounsey, Perdita Phillips, David Stewart, Mervyn Street, Dominic White and the Artists of the Wall of Wings.
Creative Producer, Kate Gorringe-Smith.
LUCILLE MARTIN
Conference is a digitised and hand-embroidered thread and textile work illustrating 13 species of endangered, threatened and extinct Australian birds. The work, one in a series of eight textile pieces created for Martin’s solo exhibition, Naturally Selected, in 2007, has been reworked for BIRD.
The endangered and threatened lists consist of land, sea and forest dwelling birds including the King Island Scrubtit, Golden Shouldered Parrot, Red Goshawk, Regent Honeyeater, Western Bristlebird, Plains Wanderer, Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, Swift Parrot, Star Finch, Helmeted Honeyeater, Alligator Rivers Yellow Chat, Rainbow Bee-Eater and Mallee Emu-Wren.
Martin worked with a commercial embroidery company to digitise her drawings and photographic images, rendering them in shades of grey, devoid of their magnificent colour, and arranging them in two facing rows, as if in conversation about the looming threat of their potential extinction.
Each bird sewn into the monotone surface is laid bare of its sustaining habitat, halted in motion and voice. The depiction of each species is at once dramatic and lifeless, leaving the viewer to imagine and reflect on these extraordinary creatures that face their demise.
Martin finally hand threads each bird with strands of coloured thread, depicting both the bird’s unique and brilliantly coloured feathers sustained, and then at once falling away. What will it take for humanity to stop the plundering of habitat and natural resources resulting in the demise of these extraordinary creature?
The lines of hanging threads collectively reference consumer bar codes, responding to climate challenges, global consumerism and overconsumption at the expense of nature. Martin’s beautifully created piece resonates in its appeal and conceptual approach, highlighting and fusing traditional craft practices of sewing and monogramming with modern technology and contemporary language, taking the viewer on an intimate and poetic journey of engagement.
Exhibition Details
Where: CLIMARTE Gallery, 120 Bridge Rd, Richmond
When: 8 February – 11 March 2023
Public Events
BIRD Opening Event – 8 February 2023
BIRD was opened at CLIMARTE Gallery by Sean Dooley – BirdLife Australia’s National Public Affairs Manager and author of Bird Count.
BIRD I: Artist Talk and Public Discussion – 11 February 2023
BIRD’s creative producer and artist, Kate Gorringe-Smith, joined with participating artists, Rachel Mousey and Lucille Martin, to talk about their art practice and the numerous processes that inform their work.
For more information and event details, click here
BIRD II: Artist Talk and Public Discussion – 4 March 2023
BIRD’s creative producer and artist, Kate Gorringe-Smith, joined participating artists, Alexis Beckett and Dominic White, for a discussion about their art works and sources of inspiration.
For more information and event details, click here
Watch video walk through of BIRD, click here
BIRD was honoured to be included in the National Sustainable Living Festival 2023 program.
https://climarte.org/project/bird/
https://climarte.org/projects/exhibitions/
Marcus O’donnell
https://twitter.com/marcusod/status/1624364132719038464/photo/2
