Nests a barking cry and a melancholy shriek or wail1 weird cooing cries and wails, shuffles to tunnels from which sepulchral, husky voices coo a deep boom the drake has a pleasing whistle; the duck a purring growl quark, dreek a grating c urrah the bird is conversational (Black-throated Diver, Manx Shearwater, Bittern, Wigeon, Wild Duck, Tufted Duck, Long-tailed Duck) ‘Peter’s approach is firmly grounded in Darwin’s theory of evolution and ‘natural selection’ whereas Andy is absorbed by the idea that nest building is a considered creative act. As they look at the extraordinary diversity of nests that birds build, their conversation touches on instinct and learning, the importance of creative collaboration and the nature of parental influence.’ 2
Last winter on a camping trip we took refuge in a bothy at the base of Meall a'Bhuachaille. We made a fire from the dry, bleached wood we’d collected from the shore of an almost pearlescent lochan before the snow really started falling. A French father and son joined us for the night, and made a heroic attempt at pommes aligot with instant potatoes on a camping stove. The father was a birder, which in this case meant that he took pictures of birds with a telephoto lens. His son tried to translate the French names for these birds, and we muddled through identification, often failing, in front of the fire as the temperature dropped into the evening and the snow layered the sky and ground into darkness.
All bird call descriptions taken from The Observer's Book of Birds (1972) Holden, A & Holden, P, ‘A Natural History of Nest Building’, Natural Selection Catalogue, p.3 1
2
rather musical when heard from a distance, but clamorous near by a clear bugle a chattering scream a low croaking rattle (Brent Goose, Whooper Swan, Merlin, Ptarmigan)
‘Southwark Council is delighted to offer the opportunity for a cultural organisation to take up a short term residency, of up to two years, in the former Newington Library on Walworth Road. We are seeking applications that will animate the ground floor space for up to two years.’ 3 ‘The image of the hermit crab that goes to live in abandoned shells is sometimes associated with the habits of the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in other nests. In both cases, Nature seems to enjoy contradicting natural morality. The imagination, whetted by exceptions of all kinds, takes pleasure in adding resources of cunning and ingenuity to the characteristics of this bird squatter.’ 4
In the currently empty basement of a former public library in Elephant & Castle, a video details the eradication of the osprey by egg collectors from England and Scotland. The collectors saw their personal egg collecting habits as insignificant to the process of extinction. It’s true that it would be very difficult for one man to wipe out an entire species on his own. But, of course, society exists. Egg collecting is a grand illicit club, rooted in the history of the aristocracy.
3
‘Meanwhile Use of the Former Newington Library’ http://www.2.southwark.gov.uk/info/200006/arts_in_southwark/3590/property_and_space/2 4 Bachelard, G. trans. Jolas, M, ‘Shells’, The Poetics of Space, p.126
the squalls of fighting cats, and of the drawing of corks cheevik knife-grinding sounds a liquid triple note a whip-lash sound an explosive scream or groan ringing squarks and guttural ejaculations sharp and metallic (Capercaillie, Partridge, Red-legged Partridge, Quail, Spotted Crake, Water Rail, Moorhen, Coot)
‘Thus values alter facts. The moment we love an image, it cannot remain the copy of a fact.’ 5
6
Andy Holden, the son in the father-son collaboration that resulted in this exhibition, argues that birds are artists. The nests, the eggs. If a work of art can be reproduced up until the point where it no longer can, where does the value lie? In a conception of art vacuumed for a brief moment against the market, it’s clearly the possibility of production itself which is the most important aspect: the fact that it can be produced, that the space and circumstances for that production exist and can continue to exist. The artwork is secondary. In as much as the artwork is unique, it would be nothing without what happens before and after. Bachelard, G. trans. Jolas, M, ‘Nests’, The Poetics of Space, p.100 Holden, A & Holden, P, ‘How the Artist was Led to the Study of Nature’, Natural Selection, Former Newington Library, 2017 5
6
a delicious, liquid t ooi an occasional double pipe a wild, strange, wailing cry scolding rasp yelping and laughing and wailing (Ringed Plover, Ruff, Stone Curlew, Great Skua, Lesser Black-backed Gull) ‘Like the Holden’s exhibition, the collection of the Cuming Museum was put together by a father and son team. Richard Cuming and his son Henry Syer Cuming’s collection included hundreds of objects reflecting their interest in archaeology, anthropology and natural history.’ 7
On the video screen works by Turner, Constable, Hockney, Rubens, pass behind an animated crow; traditionally we value, the market values, these individual works, held up like this, referenced, compulsively fetishised.
7
Holden, A & Holden, P, ‘Introduction to the exhibition’, Natural Selection Catalogue, p.2
various ejaculations and a particularly raucous scream agh like coughing or clearing the throat screeches, hisses and snores a purring sound like a sewing machine working (Black-headed Gull, Roseate Tern, Cuckoo, Barn Owl, Nightjar)
‘Look she said this is not the distance we wanted to stay at--We wanted to get close, very close. But what is the way in again? And is it too late? She could hear the actions rushing past--but they are on another track. And in the silence, or whatever it is that follows, there was still the buzzing: motes, spores, aftereffects and whatnot recalled the morning after. Then the thickness you can't get past called waiting. Then the you, whoever you are, peering down to see if it's done yet, Then just the looking on things of being looked-at. Then just the look on things of being seen.’ 8
If frame this way - the artist, the eggs, the nests - then what has to follow is a necessary understanding that this generation of ‘art’ literally produces the next generation of ‘artists’. To ignore this numbs all but the shallowest interaction, and leaves this heartbreaking hollow. The eggs and the shelves of this library are both uncanny in their emptiness. How is it that they are perceived so utterly differently. When we talk about the collectors, what precisely are we talking about? We are scared of what might be performed or revealed during this collection. We ask why the reed warbler continues to sate the imposter cuckoo when it is so clearly a gross exaggeration of its own young. But what are we questioning here. What are the metaphors we are collecting in service of? Why are we collecting them within such a narrowly self-prescribed understanding. Almost willingly devoid of empathy. 8
Graham, J. 'Act III, Sc. 2', Region of Unlikeness, p66.
a beautiful but rather wistful song it does not sing while with us (Wood Lark, Shore Lark) ‘Southwark Council are leading a £3 billon [sic.] programme in the Elephant and Castle, which will create a new exciting destination for London over the next 15 years. The regeneration will include the creation of a new pedestrianised town centre, market square, 5,000 new and replacement homes, up to 450,000 square feet of retail space, an integrated public transport hub and high quality new green spaces.’ 9
‘But the dreams of today do not go this far, and an abandoned nest no longer contains the herb of invisibility. Indeed, the nest we pluck from the hedge like a dead flower, is nothing but a "thing." I have the right to take it in my hands and pull it apart.’ 10
Sometimes I like to think of what we might regard as the warded extension of a crystallised memory of the welfare state as the construction of a system drawn through folkloric song from an older earth covered with trees and the remains of trees.
9
Meanwhile Use of the Former Newington Library - Application Brief http://www.2.southwark.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/14284/meanwhile_use_of_newington_l ibrary_application_brief 10 Bachelard, G. trans. Jolas, M, ‘Nests’, The Poetics of Space, p.94
clear, fluty, challenging W ho are you-oo? a guttural, pig-like grunt full of penetrating and jubilant trills did he do it, did he do it, Judy did (Golden Oriole, Raven, Wren, Song Thrush)
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery / Leeds Art Gallery / Towner Art Gallery / National Lottery / Bristol Green Capital 2015 / Henry Moore Foundation / Artangel’s Guardian Angels / Tate / Esmée Fairbairn Foundation / Foyle Foundation / Arts Council England / Artangel International Circle / Special
Angels / Company of Angels. 11
Later in that hermetic evening in the bothy, a little whisky, all of us vaguely wishing we were alone but elevated by the passive act of simply existing in a room with strangers, the son told a story about an osprey. He said a friend, or a friend of a friend, caught a big carp somewhere, maybe in a Corsican river, and the fish had these two talons embedded in its flesh. Nothing else. Just the talons. He said that osprey sometimes see fish in the water, and they dive down and grab them, curved talons slicing through the scales. Sometimes the fish are too big, and the osprey struggles along the surface of the water, trying to haul its own wet feathers and the thick scaly mass out of the lake, and it just gets too tired. 11
‘Who made this possible?’, Credits, https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/natural-selection/
a sibilant stutter, breaking into a shivering, silvery trill like a wheelbarrow with a rusty wheel high, musical, but querulous t zueet reminiscent of Japanese windbells often almost dreamy (Wood Warbler, Spotted Flycatcher, Siskin, Goldfinch, Linnet) ‘...Oh well. I will remove my egotistical self-interest and give this library an objective 4 stars nonetheless. I'm just that decent of a person...the staff answered my questions promptly and accurately, like a teacher's pet might...I thought about opening a second library account, but decided not to. Then I went to the market and all was well.’ 12
‘Downstairs in the grim bowels of this forgotten building’ 13
The ridged edges of the talons lock and seize deep in the carp, preventing release, and the osprey is unable to let go. The osprey drowns, and the fish presumably lives a strange, short, unhappy life. Perhaps just a life. I would assume that soon the pain becomes a dull ache, the fish continues, and that painful life just becomes, barring infection, a version of life. Dragged down, and later dragged up again, but different. Something else. 12
https://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/newington-library-london?hrid=Zc2E69OQtkbRPDXE6Q2YvA ‘Andy Holden & Peter Holden: Natural Selection review’, Time Out London
13
https://www.timeout.com/london/art/andy-holden-peter-holden-natural-selection-review
a rollicking cadence, ending up with a flourish like the shattering of glass (Chaffinch, Corn Bunting)
‘In the neuter austerity of that terrain all phenomena were bequeathed a strange equality and no one thing nor spider nor stone nor blade of grass could put forth claim to precedence. The very clarity of these articles belied their familiarity, for the eye predicates the whole on some feature or part and here was nothing more luminous than another and nothing more enshadowed and in the optical democracy of such landscapes all preference is made whimsical and a man and a rock become endowed with unguessed kinships.’ 14
15
14
McCarthy, C. Blood Meridian, p261
15
https://www.britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V61/V61_N10/V61_N10_P465_468_N080.pdf