events

Fashioning Feathers; Dead Birds, Millinery Crafts and the Plumage Trade

Exhibition Poster

Some works from ‘THE BIOGRAPHY OF A LIE’ shown in an exhibition in the FAB gallery at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.
Egret aigrette Egret aigrette Kittiwake anklering kittiwake shroud
Egret aigrette aigrette Kittiwake anklering kittiwake shroud

The latest model for egret / aigrette, a piece of bird body jewellery, is a snowy egret, shot in 1909 by an Arthur Elliot. At that time, snowy egret populations were being decimated for the plumage trade.

stuffed bird attached

New work by Foster and Patchett – ‘stuffed bird atached’ – contextualised two exhibits (the head of a bird of paradise, and a bird on a hat).
bookpage
Click on this pdf logo to download the full version of ‘stuffed bird atached’:
stuffed bird attached

Click this link for an online catalogue of the whole exhibition compiled by Merle Patchett: www.fashioningfeathers.com
rainforest fieldwork
Groundwork SketchbookSnakePattern
Groundwork Sketchbook Payamino Patterns

Click on the images above for details of rainforest fieldwork
Out of time

A cross-disciplinary exhibition inspired by the arts of taxidermy, June 2007, Hunterian Zoology Museum, Glasgow University
bird skin in preparationlogo
Exhibition leaflet Exhibition leaflet
Exhibition Poster Exhibition Leaflet

artists: Jethro Brice – Kate Foster – Andrea Roe
geographers: Hayden Lorimer – Merle Patchett
taxidermists: Dick Hendry – Peter Summers

out of time was an exhibition inspired by the arts of taxidermy, showing work by artists and geographers. It takes great skill to separate a skin from a body, and then to rearrange it in a lifelike form. Taxidermy is one way that dead animals are preserved for collections, giving animals an extended ‘afterlife’. Animals remains are transported into the realms of human culture – and if they are acquired by a zoological museum, they survive in a hushed and unruffled world, without daylight or changes in climate. Specimens may endure when a species becomes extinct or endangered, perversely becoming more valuable. Each of the different exhibits shows something taken ‘out of time’. We looked at those fine lines between life and death, nature and culture, the artificial and the real.
Lines of Enquiry

In 1907 the Geological Memoir for the North-West Highlands of Scotland was published, a marker point in the construction of geological knowledge. Following the Centenary Conference in Ullapool, May 2007, “Lines of Enquiry” were pursued collaboratively by an artist, geographer and geologist, taking an oblique view of how geologists make geology.

Click on this circle for more about Lines of Enquiry:

round peg and square

Click on the grid for the geological background:

incomplete square
Count Raggi’s Bird

A book, written after finding a box marked “FEATHERS”
Raggi’s Bird 1 Lace Raggi’s Bird 2 Count Raggi text
Raggi’s Bird 1 Lace Raggi’s Bird 2
© Hunterian Museum Exhibition Text
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A LIE

A tailor-made collection of body jewellery for birds which were nearly made extinct by the plumage trade. The ‘models’ came from the Hunterian Zoology collection in Glasgow University. This exhibition was supported by Glasgow City Council.
egret mist net exhibition text
egret/chapeau mist net Exhibition Text
succession

The “MOORLAND BED” in Glasgow Botanic Gardens is a microcosm, a case study of processes. This work was made possible by a personal millennial award from RIAS.
mark mat succession
mark mat succession
Sandbag

A massive sandbag, made with the guidance of the 52nd Lowland Regiment
sandbagger sandbag 2 sandbag 3
sand-bagger sandbag 1 sandbag 2
Book of Water

A contemporary Book of Water – with word lists on paper 9 x88 cm, the least and most sea level is expected to rise this century. A filing cabinet 79 cm x 79 cm, a space of uncertainty between 9 and 88. A sound installation located in a basement, at the heart of a sea water circulation system.
filing cabinet pipes 1 pipes 2
filing cabinet pipes 1 pipes 2