Cover image not available
Limited ed. of 500 copies.
Artist's book. Pages bear colour images and captions. Many of the images are associated with birds, including coats made for "hybrid" birds and images of installations by the artist. The images include paper birds pinned or suspended.
"Birds by Ciara Healy is the second part in a series of "nature library" books that explore the theme of belonging and identity through the language of Natural History. Following on from "Butterflies by Ciara Healy" the Bird imagery reflects upon the interconnections between that which has changed and that which remains. The book juxtaposes found images from 19th century museum displays with images of knitted bird coats in bell jars and cabinets of curiosities filled with everyday found objects. Placing these images together subverts the traditional forms of classification that continue to influence how history and identity is perceived. There are three groups of birds identified in this book; native, migrant and hybrid. The hybrid bird species occupies an in-between space, a displaced space. The more we become displaced the more likely the notion of home becomes understood as being between places, rather than being rooted to one specific place and, consequently, to one exclusive identity or set of cultural codes. When our sense of place or home is lost through social or environmental change we often attempt to make tangible what is missing and absent. In order to come to terms with the loss, we romanticise what has been left behind precisely because it is no longer physically tangible" --from informatio provided by the artist.
"Floating between the records of moments passed, the birds in my work become caught between two worlds, between the familiar and the strange, between belonging and disappearance. Their paradoxical presence and absence occupies an in-between space, momentarily they are, as the post [poet?] Bernard O'Donoghue puts it, 'neither here nor there, and therefore, home'." -- from information provided by the artist.
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Birds by Ciara Healy. ISBN 9780955225673. Published by www.ignition.ie in 2007. Publication and catalogue information, links to buy online and reader comments.