Towering/The Menagerie
Dazibao, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2021
The three-channel video installation Towering/The Menagerie (2021) was filmed during an artist residency at the Quebec Studio in London. It focuses on natural history museum collections and heritage sites, to better explore some pressing issues related to the phenomenon of biodiversity loss and the climate crisis. To do so, the work parallels two types of events: the recent introduction of new bird species from the South to the UK and the historical development of menageries in colonial England in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In particular, Towering/The Menagerie explores the collections of bird specimens and illustrations of the Natural History Museum as well as some of the gardens and heritage buildings in the greater London area, Warwickshire and Hertfordshire that once contained a menagerie. Although the documented presence of exotic animal species in England dates back to the 13th century, it was primarily as a result of the settlement of colonies abroad that the English ruling class developed a taste
for menageries as a sign of power and wealth. Within the work, bird specimens, pictorial representations and architectural sites are combined in order to think about the loss of biodiversity in relation to colonialism. The British Isles are a crucial site for the northward passage of birds and an important nesting ground for many African and European migratory species - whose range is changing with climate change and intensive agricultural practices.
This research is part of a broader initiative entitled Towering, a sailing term referring to the refraction effect that causes distant objects to appear more vertically elongated than they actually are. The project questions the notions of the living world inherited from the modern era: a world decontextualized, simplified and there to be exploited. It documents certain forms of the modernist conception and knowledge of the natural world such as the garden, the menagerie and the natural history museum collection, then reframes them to suggest other possible interpretations.
Video
Produced and directed by: Geneviève Chevalier
Camera: Geneviève Chevalier
Editing: Geneviève Chevalier, Alexis Landriault
Colour Correction: Alexis Landriault
Sound Design and Editing: Bruno Pucella
Audio Mastering: Bruno Pucella
Special Thanks
Conseil des arts du Canada
Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, programme de résidence d’artistes
Alex Bond, Senior Curator in Charge, Birds, Museum of Natural History at Tring
Library and Archives, Museum of Natural History
Packwood House
Main Film