The Ibis and Us: Ecologies of Belonging

 The Ibis and Us: Ecologies of Belonging #1, 2014.

Inkjet print on rice paper, 38cm x 57cm.

The Ibis and Us: Ecologies of Belonging #2, 2014.

Inkjet print on rice paper, 38cm x 57cm.

The Ibis and Us: Ecologies of Belonging #3, 2014.
Inkjet print on rice paper, 38cm x 57cm.

The Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) is a native waterbird, which has colonised Sydney over the last thirty years due to persistent drought in their traditional inland wetland habitats. My artwork responds to this geographical and ecological change, starting with the question: Can Sydneysiders live together with the Australian White Ibis? The artwork is a photomontage series that contemplates interspecies relations between humans and ibises. The composite images combine portraits of ibises from the Cook’s River with photographs of ‘home wanted’ flyers that mimic ‘lost pet’ posters. I installed the flyers on telegraph poles in nearby streets and documented the changes over several weeks; the flyers are incorporated in the exhibition as a take-away. The photomontage generates a dialogue between the portraits and flyer installations combined within the images, which speculates on human-ibis cohabitation and belonging in the city. 

I describe this work as art-geography, which responds to themes familiar in both contemporary art and cultural geography. Historically, animals have been a notable subject for art, and in current practice they have attained new significance. Concern about conservation and environmental change over the last forty years has renewed artists’ attention to animals, producing work that contemplates relations between humanity, nature and culture. Human-animal and nature-culture interactions are key themes in cultural geography, too, and over the last decade a number of geographers have turned to contemporary art practices to explore these relations anew. Art-geography, in combining insights and techniques from contemporary art and cultural geography, transcends the boundary of knowledge and practice. My work adds to the inter-disciplinary dialogue that speculates on shifting human-animal relations. 

 
 

Installation photograph, COFA D Block, 5 June 2014.