East as the crow flies
Alex Wang-Chung
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Amber Charlize and I chose to make this piece in collaboration because of our interests in different aspects of city life. For Amber, it was the animals and her relationship to them, transcendent of language or communication as humans do with one another. I was interested in urban infrastructure, and the different ways that they obstruct or alleviate pathways. Combining our interests--mine in wheel thrown large scale vessels, and Amber's in ceramic sculpture--this project culminated into an observation on Vancouver crows, using the site of Still Creek (a major roosting spot for crows) as research. Through time spent looking at crows and noticing the ways they move in and out of Still Creek, our project is an interpretation of these behaviours, which we found were not dissimilar at all to the ways that humans move. A gathering of crows experiencing death and grief destabilizes human exceptionalism, and the idea that humans are the only ones with capabilities to feel and communicate with complexity.