The explorations of Captain James Cook (2016)

A good friend was having a clear out of his books and gifted me a book on bird paintings/illustrations. One of the chapters was on Captain James Cook's explorations during the late seventeen hundreds and had a number of illustrations alongside the narrative of his journeys.

During that same time, I had stumbled upon an amazing book by an American woman called 'The Unfeathered Bird', in which she described her work gathering birds who had died naturally in the woods round her home, cleaning them (with the help of her husband) and subsequently making minutely detailed pencil drawings of their skeletons. I was drawn by the fragile beauty of these paper-thin fragments, and the idea for the installation emerged.

I traced Captain Cook's footsteps, marrying the places he'd visited at specific times with the collection of bird specimens, some imaginary but most genuine names. I created his diary in which he wrote about each of his specimen, and the events surrounding their capture, with significant artistic license. I hand dyed and parched the paper, making it look ancient, and 'bound' it in a couple of carved wooden sections from an antique wardrobe.

Each of the birds (there were 10) were made using steel wire, old book paper and varnish. I scoured local second-hand shops and garden centres for vintage looking metal bird cages. I then hung the cages from my pergola and placed the diary in an antique mahogany writing box underneath.

After the exhibition finished, I kept most of the birds outside spread throughout the garden, until the paper succumbed to rain and wind. I still have three of them intact, kept indoors.