Koulla Roussos

  • Artist

  • Curator

  • Blog

  • Contact

  • Blog

  • More

    The artful fright of a bird

    May 15, 2017

    |

    Koulla Roussos

    My weekend adventure with three birds

     

    Last Saturday morning I captured and set free a dove trapped inside the high ceilings of my apartment. It took sometime and persistence with sheet throwing, showing remarkable ingenuity on my part to trap it with minimum force. As I held it in my hand one of its wings became fully extended, tensed from her electrified fear of all that must be unknowable.

     

    Here is a photograph of the dove just before my many attempts to capture her with a sheet began.

     

     

     

     

    That same Saturday in the afternoon, a small type of passerine collided with the windscreen of my car. Note: I have looked through my birds of Australia book to see if I can remember what bird it was to no avail. "Passerines" is a collective term. 

     

    In the rear view mirror I saw her mate flying over and around her as she was lying flat on the bitumen.  I returned and parked my car, exited and picked her up. I felt the tremor of her beating heart and her beak was wide open with terror. I placed her on the glovebox inside my car, and in the time I was taking  to figure out what to do with her, she ruffled her wings and began to fly off the glove box and around the car. I pushed the electric window knob down. When she flew out the window she was joined by another bird, her mate I supposed, and they flew and swooped and turned and danced around the hibiscus bushes. I did not think that such a contrived happy ending was ever possible, but my heart soared to the tune of a Disney musical, and I felt the contrived innocence of a snow white. 

     

    This morning I went on my balcony to check below on the roof rack of my car. There was the third bird of my weekend adventure perched on the roof rack wire. I saw her last night as I was leaving my sister's home where we celebrated Mother's Day with our mother and her mother-in-law.  During our dinenr, I shared with all the story of the two birds thus far.

     

    As I was leaving later in the night, my sister pointed her out perched in the dark on the roof rack of my car, and I remarked how uncanny that I have a third bird to finish my story.

     

    I drove off thinking it will fly away in the breeze. I parked at my place and she was still there. I woke up and checked to see if she flew off overnight, to my surprise she was still there. Before I slept I searched on line for possible answers on whether these bird encounters heralded divinatory messages. 

     

    Here is a photograph of the tiny passenger last night:

     

    I collected her in the morning and placed her in a shallow box. I tried dripping water into her beak from the tip of my forefinger. She squeaked with an inability to spread her wings out to fly. Sometimes she swallowed. I tried to drink my coffee and read the morning news but her squawk interrupted my morning routine.

     

    Here is a photograph of the bird in the cardboard box: 

     

     

    I took a video of her inside the box, imagined it on a loop on a large flat screen or projected on a dark gallery wall and mooted over the ethics of making video art of this nature. I imagined the title on the exhibition explanatory panel. The artful flights of fancy of a fickle artist. I will post the video once I figure out how to upload it. 

     

    After calling an animal rescue hotline I dropped her off at the nearest vet.

     

    In the form I was required to state the type of bird it was and the exact location found.  I wrote: This little pee wee was found on top of a car perched on a roof rack on Trower Road Nakara. Incidentally, and embarrassingly I must admit that I asked the vet nurse to tell me what type of bird she thought this was. 

     

    On the form I also added: Nearby on the footpath on which my car was parked I  noticed an adult bird dead on the ground. Lifeless. I did not think to take a photo of this bird. I never imagined then I would need it as a pic to end a blog post with. 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Tags:

    bird

    interior

    birds

    darwin

    darwin art

    darwin curator

    curator

    contemporary art

    video art

    Please reload

    Featured Posts

    Eileen Song, Cliffside, on violence as a work of art

    June 25, 2019

    Flash Art, Darwin Landscapes Part 1- The Don Hotel

    October 1, 2013

    Liss Fenwick, Grim Purpose, DVA 30/8/19-13/9/19

    September 13, 2019

    1/10
    Please reload

    Recent Posts

    Therese Ritchie, "If she were as priceless as a Warhol, you'd save her" limited 99 edition screen print, 2020

    July 27, 2020

    The Lighthouse, dir. R. Eggers (2019)

    July 4, 2020

    Humanities

    June 29, 2020

    Exhibition review: ‘Burning hearts’, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT)

    June 4, 2020

    Franck Gohier, "Don't Cough Comrades" 2020 screen print, edition 99

    April 29, 2020

    Easter Saturday, 1974

    April 18, 2020

    On my father’s doubts about art

    December 26, 2019

    The Plague of Florence

    October 29, 2019

    Shit that I Like

    October 7, 2019

    Liss Fenwick, Grim Purpose, DVA 30/8/19-13/9/19

    September 13, 2019

    Please reload

    Search By Tags

    9999

    Australian Contemporary artists

    Contemporary Photography

    Darwin Contemporary Artist

    Fernanda Dupal

    Firenze

    Gianni Pattena

    Gloria Richards

    Grim Purpose

    Humpty Doo

    Koulla Roussos

    Koulla roussos

    Matthew van Roden

    Melbourne

    Peter dermoudy

    Polly Johnstone

    Tarzan JungleQueen

    activism

    alt-modern

    architecture

    archizoom

    art

    art critique

    art exhibition

    art review

    art writing

    artist

    barrister

    city of Darwin

    contemporary art curator

    darwin

    darwin artists

    darwin contemporary arts

    digital artist

    drawing

    envy

    exhibition

    exhibition design

    exhibition layout

    exhibition location

    exhibition review

    fifo

    florence

    futurohome

    history

    installation

    italian

    local history

    mars gallery

    palazzo Strozzi

    palpable voids

    peripatetic

    photographer

    photography

    radicali

    refugees

    review

    room with a view

    sculpture

    student

    travel

    utopian utopie

    yellow

    #contiguityoftotalisation #matthewvanroden #tarzanjunglequeen #koullaroussos #collaboration #installation #performanceart #experimentalvideoart #contemporaryartists #biennaleofaustralianart #boaa #ballarat #darwin #australiancontemporaryartists

    #darwinnt #artsnt #art #contemporaryart #curator

    #koullaroussos #matthewvanroden #tarzanjunglequeen #biennaleofaustralianart #boaa #experimentalvideo #performance #queer #queerart #darwincontemporaryartists #frontier

    150th anniversary

    1869

    Anna Westbrook

    Artist

    Ava Amedi

    COnCREtE

    Cafe Del Art DArwin

    Camus

    Chapter 1

    Chayni Henry

    Contemporary Art

    Contemporary art

    Creature From The Black Lagoon

    D.evolution

    DVAA

    Darwin Art

    Darwin Visual Arts

    Darwin contemporary artists

    Deck Bar Darwin

    Deckchair Cinema

    Delphi Bank

    Dr Sam Wells

    Emma Masters

    Exodus

    Flash Art

    Franck Gohier

    Gary Lee

    Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Culture Centre

    Greek International Film Festival

    Group V

    Harriet Place

    Insomniaart

    Jetlagart

    Jonathon Saunders

    Koulla Roussos

    Leanne Waterhouse

    Liss Fenwick

    Live Darwin Art

    MAGNT

    Martina Copely

    Matthew van Roden

    Mayfair Gallery

    Melbourne contemporary artist

    Melody Ellis

    Michelle Culpitt

    NAVA

    NCAA

    NT Art

    NT Library

    Nietzsche

    On Vulnerability and Doubt

    Origin Of A City

    Penelope Benton

    Pia Ednie-Brown

    Podvig

    Postchristmas

    Pride NT

    Red Hand prints

    Regis Martin

    Remo Buti

    Robert Eggers

    SSM

    Seperate Ways

    Sholto Buck

    Shu Ling Chua

    Street Art

    TaNTrum

    Travis Vella

    Uncle

    Worlds Apart

    Wrestler

    Zara Sigglekow

    a thousand miles from everywhere

    acca

    aeschylus

    afternoon walk

    agit-prop art

    alexander rodchenko

    architecture

    argument

    art

    art and architecturepodtpopart

    art commission

    art history

    art in the time of corona

    art market

    art monthly

    art monthly australasia

    art of pride

    art print

    art production

    art review

    art writing

    artifice

    artistic irony

    artreview

    australia

    australian artists

    australian centre of contemporary art

    authorship

    aviation

    aviation history

    babel

    banal

    benjamin aitken

    billamuk

    bird

    birds

    biscotti

    bombing of darwin

    bong ramilo

    bruce lee

    bruegel

    burning hearts

    bush fire devastation

    cafe del art

    cage me a peacock

    caligari

    camera

    carla ori

    chinese

    cinema

    cliffside

    cogito ergo sum

    commission

    contemporary art

    contemporary art darwin

    contemporary storytelling

    contructivism

    coronart

    coronavirus

    covid-19

    creative non fiction

    critical theory

    culture

    culture industries

    culture making

    curating in the time of corona

    curation

    curator

    cyclone tracy

    darwin

    darwin art

    darwin artist

    darwin contemporary art

    darwin contemporary artist

    darwin contemporary artists

    darwin curator

    darwin kalymnian

    darwin lap top orchestra

    darwin northern territory

    darwin visual arts

    david collins

    death

    decameron

    deck bar

    design

    dialectic

    digital

    dino hodge

    discipline

    don dale

    don't cough comrades

    dragon

    dream

    dye sublimation print

    dylan voller

    early horror film

    east point road

    ecological collapse

    eileen song

    emerging artist

    emma masters

    empty

    empty buildings

    empty buildings of darwin

    encaustic

    epistemology

    exhibition

    exhibition review

    exhibition writing

    existence

    existential crisis

    experimental

    expressionism cinema

    expressionist film

    fabric

    family snapshot

    fannie bay

    fannie bay gaol

    fantasy genre

    fernandah dahlstrom

    film review

    flaneur

    food

    foucalt

    foucault

    franck gohier

    frankfurt school

    fredrich schultze

    fritz lang

    frontier modernity

    frontier post modernity

    futuro

    game of death

    gardening

    gaze

    george brown darwin botanic gardens

    german cinema

    ghosts

    giotto

    gothic

    goyder

    goyder expedition

    gps and shadows

    greek

    greek easter

    green

    grey

    hagel

    hand made

    handmade book