Cornell Lab of Ornithology Birds of Paradise
The following footage of Greater Birds of Paradise, courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, will be shown in the upcoming exhibition. The video will be displayed next to the cabinets displaying the bird of paradise millinery skins (see above) and hats. This juxtaposition of life and death will hopefully get visitors to think about … Continue reading
Becoming Avian, Curtesy of Andrea Roe and Peter Summers
Fashioning Feathers will host the North American premier of Andrea Roe’s video-work Kingfisher. Video footage taken by Roe in Kingfisher reveals the delicate and creative process of ethical taxidermy and in particular showcases the expertise of Peter Summers, a museum taxidermist expertly preparing a mounted kingfisher. Through a Leverhulme Trust artist residency at the Natural Sciences department of the National Museum … Continue reading
Re-Labeling Birds of Paradise Specimens
Words and Objects: Writing on, around and about things In a recent conference at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford entitled “Word and Objects” the objective was to explore the role of words in the documentation, interpretation and presentation of objects-both historically and in the present, and in what such analysis tells us about both explicit and implicit … Continue reading
Artefact as Archive: Evidence of ‘Willowing’ on Ostrich Plume
Artefact as Archive A recent vein of creative historical research has reconsidered ‘the limits and location of any set of materials determined as “archive”’ (Lorimer 2009). Within this body of work, researchers have highlighted that material encounters and material entities can be rich resources for historical recovery (Kurtz 2001; Till 2001; DeSilvey 2006, 2007b; Featherstone … Continue reading