Colonised Fauna / May 7, 2020 by Tsering Frykman-Glen

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Alfred and Tsering's initial conversation originated from a shared observation about exotic fauna in Western European art, and whether these depictions of birds and animals had been utilised to enhance position and status. Ostensibly, patrons could exploit art to show off their connections to the colonies by the insertion a tropical bird or animal. These commissioned works of art lavishly display the real or fanciful creatures that were taken from the colonies (invariably without showing the colonised*) as tamed playthings or worse, food. By making the people of the colonised country invisible and implying possession of the fauna, thus signifying the land, was this a way of declaring ownership? To show that the colonisers had brought the "wild" to heel?

*While certainly there are many exceptions, it is important to note, that people of colour in Western European art were often depicted either as strange and outlandish or those in servitude, mostly unnamed, while various notable non white historical figures have been (and continue to be) portrayed as white. However, there is a rich history of people of colour in Western European art that is often ignored and the issue of how these works are (or not) displayed is frequently problematic.

Cockatoo / April 21, 2020 by Tsering Frykman-Glen

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Articles on cockatoos (not in any particular order - most recently discovered first)

Cockatoo perched in Renaissance painting forces rethink of history - Oliver Milman, The Guardian (2014)

”Discovery of an animal more closely associated with Sydney than Venice is leading to a revision of early trading networks.”

Images of cockatoo on 13th-century Vatican manuscript inspire trade route rethink - Kate Lyons, The Guardian (2013)

"Holy Emperor’s falconry guide shows the oldest known European depiction of the bird."

Feathers / April 23, 2019 by Tsering Frykman-Glen

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Articles on feathers (not in any particular order - most recently discovered first)

Gene discovery may reveal how scaly dinosaurs became feathery birds - Dr David Hone, The Guardian (2017)

”A study shows that tweaking the genes of alligators can produce feather-like structures – we could be on our way to understanding how birds became birds.”

Wild Time 3 / February 12, 2019 by Tsering Frykman-Glen

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Wild Time 3 - collaborative occurrence and livestream, 53 minutes (2019)

“Wild Time 3 is an entangling of myself with the nuances of kairos/Zeit/sandali where the historical canary in a coal mine acted as my guide. Wearing a gender-bent Tagalog formal dress with Cymbidium orchids in my hair, I wanted to perform an act of balancing feathers on charcoal branches to reinvoke the liminal space created by Serinus canaria domestica in early 20th century mines as part of Ulrike Mohr’s Wechselraum (2019) at 6-7AM in Meinblau Projektraum, Berlin. The element of respiratory danger, interspecies relationships, and momentary equilibrium present in such history and hopefully in Wild Time 1 reasserts the value of coexistence in space-time.”

Second Adolescence - Alfred Marasigan / June 30, 2018 by Tsering Frykman-Glen

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Created from a workshop with artist Matthias Härenstam, “Second Adolescence” (2018) is my interpretation of the word “wound.” I saw much of my trauma emanating from my repressed homosexuality during my teenage years and found my current flamboyant behavior a late release of such impulses.

Menagerie - Alfred Marasigan / June 25, 2018 by Tsering Frykman-Glen

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Menagerie is a project on the strangeness of displacement. Musikkpaviljongen is one of the oldest structures in Tromsø, Norway and I would like to think of it as a music box on the top of the world. I was inspired to create a sculpture that pays homage to the Tigmanaukan, a mystical creature from mostly Tagalog or Luzon myths in the Northern islands of the Philippines. In the beginning was nothingness and the Tigmanaukan, a giant cosmic bird that eventually got bored of the universe and pecked at the first bamboo tree. It split into two revealing the first man (Malakas or Strong) and woman (Maganda or Beautiful). A few 17th century naturalists have pointed to the Philippine fairy bluebird (Irena cyanogastra, a IUCN Red List endemic species) as the inspiration for this enduring creation story.

The feeling of being displaced from my country has helped me rediscover my culture. Today, my sculpture features the actual cries of the Philippine fairy bluebird emanating from a fictional device that mimics a strange quality of being alive. Be they geographic, mythic, artistic, or personal, our stories ultimately animate us.

2018 © All bird recordings were sourced from https://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Irenacyanogastra; bird footage from https://www.hbw.com/ibc/video/philippine-fairy-bluebirdirena-cyanogastra/male-foraging-berries.