Join artists Daniel & Clara for an illustrated talk about their latest exhibition ‘The Watcher and the Bird’ with a focus on the human gaze and their exploration of the optical and psychological processes at play when humans look at nature.
Daniel & Clara will discuss using moving image and photography to depict wild birds, trained birds and taxidermy specimens – and how they have engaged with the various ways in which we have looked at birds through history and the role images play in understanding our relationship to the natural world.
This presentation will be followed by a conversation with curator Jess Twyman.
All welcome
This project took inspiration from the University of Essex’s J.A. Baker archive, examples of which are on show alongside the artists’ exhibition, and has been made possible with funding from Arts Council England.
Bio
Since meeting in 2010 Daniel & Clara have dedicated themselves to a shared life of creative experimentation, working across moving image, photography, performance and mail art to explore the nature of human experience, perception and reality.
Their current projects focus on the fraught and complex relationship between humans and the natural world, particularly exploring the climate crisis as a psychological crisis and the ways in which this manifests in the imagination.
They currently live on Mersea Island on the Essex coast, UK.
