This residency was a continuation of a project concept I have been working on for several years, revolving around reflections on the work and life of my great, great grandfather, renowned 19th Century Scottish ornithologist, natural history illustrator and writer William MacGillivray. In this project I reflect on the influence of William in my early childhood – memories of his stunning highly representational water colour paintings of black crows hanging on our family dining room walls have left me to contemplate the function of natural history illustration in this era and the emphasis on the rendition of perfection. This left me with a feeling of ambivalence, as the necessity to be unreachably “perfect” – or  nothing – reigned in our household. A necessity which had negative consequences, and I have always associated – rightly or wrongly – with the MacGillivray inheritance.

In this residency I position myself as William’s 21st Century “echo” to the echo he references in his 19th Century poem “Solitudes”:

found its echo

 

My composition for voice, extended vocal techniques and looped bagpipes was a pivotal part of this project, which I also presented with a slide showing of an echoic “call and response” between naturalistic William’s drawings and paintings in the  era of Romantic Colonialism and our era of the Anthropocene. 

 

The scroll installation involves echoing – enacting the practices of specimen hunting by William, but in the context of the environment of BigCi, going on walks and using technology relevant to the 21st Century: photographing and finding interesting natural forms and objects such as a lateral root, leaves, banksia flowers, fungi and a rock resembling a skull. I drew on this imagery with my own “imperfect” interpretation of these natural forms, contrasting and contradicting William’s approach. 

 

I also included a 19th Century pianola scroll as the second scroll, referencing my musical inheritance from the MacGilluvray side of my family. On this I drew “imperfect” renditions of found natural objects in the vicinity of BigCi. The piano roll’s analogue function contrasted the digital function of my electric piano as part of my performance.

Listen to Solitudes on SoundCloud: