Let's Talk About this Fascination with Crows

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Let's talk about this fascination in the Vancouver art world with crows.

I
know that there is this thing in Vancouver where a huge flock of crows
migrate each night and land somewhere in Burnaby, where they spend the
night in a tree behind a McDonald's restaurant.

I can see why
this is an interesting trope - wilderness, urbanity, the east/west
split that persists in this city, plus a rich history about crows in
First Nations literature - but it's a bit weird how this keeps
coming into art all the time. I think maybe someone needs to curate a
show on this subject. It clearly isn't going away!

Some examples:

"At this year's Signal + Noise
Zoe Gordini and Vern Clare attempt to create a situationist detournment
by interrupting this nightly crow migration. By donning a suit made of
bread, they hope to intervene this act of nature and include crows in
art."

http://www.beyondrobson.com/arts_film/2006/04/signal_and_noise/#more

(This by the way sounds amazing)

Then
there is also this project - "Flow": Fiona Bowie, Rebecca Belmore and
Sidney Fels were commissioned to do a new public art piece for the 1
Kingsway project, which also has to do with projecting images including
shadows of crows.

http://www.fionabowie.org/

There
was also an exhibition at the Surrey Art Gallery in October 2005 by
Suzanna Northcott, called "Crossing Boundaries" which was about the
nightly migration of the crows.Langley-based artist, Suzanne Northcott is fascinated by the behaviour
of crows. Here is a blurb from that: "To her, they represent an 'awesome otherness', especially
every evening when 16,000 Northwestern Crows migrate from their
Vancouver scavenging territories, crossing Boundary Road to a communal
roost in Burnaby. "

Speaking
of crows, Deanne Achong has made a gorgeous robotic crow -
"crowbot" - that will be unveiled during our robot exhibition which
opens tomorrow (Thursday May 11 at 8pm at the Western Front). It is able to read colours and
display what it sees, plus it's really shiny and rubbery and has knit
legs. So there is another crow. Come and see Vancouver's latest...