collection of minds​

#5 animal geographies took place as part of 'Action on the Plains: Contemporary Art in Rural Environments', an annual artist-in-residence program in the rural High Plains region of Colorado. I was invited to carry out this work to consider the agency of non-human species and their forms of ‘writing’ on the land.

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The Plains region has a history of mass clearance of animal life, from the 19th C systematic slaughter of the buffalo, as described in a contemporary report (Hornaday 1886), to present-day regulations and attitudes that encourage widespread extermination of ‘pests’, a category that seems open to broad interpretation.

 

A situation such as this one requires a local person to mediate the experience for an outsider, but that mediation was largely unavailable at the time of my visit. As a result, the work arising from the residency is inflected by absence – an absence of animal life, an absence of shared perspectives, an absence of common ground with my collaborators.

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Other work from the residency can be viewed here and is presented as a chapter in the publication one kind and another.

 

The Action on the Plains programme, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, is initiated through the rural arts collective M12. This work received additional financial support from the Arts Council of Ireland and Clare County Council. 

 

Reference: Hornaday, William T., Superintendent of the National Zoological Park, 1886-'87, The Extermination Of The American Bison, From the Report of the National Museum.