Vanishing point: where species meet

Work by a Cumbria-based art partnership has been brightening the long winter nights for residents of Moscow. A three-channel video, created by University of Cumbria Reader Dr Mark Wilson and partner Professor Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir, was shown on a vast exterior wall at the State Darwin Museum in the Russian capital. The 18-minute HD video, Vanishing Point: Where Species Meet is the result of a long-term exploration by the artists into relationships of encounter and exchange between man and non-human species and on this occasion, wild birds. Vanishing Point documents a meeting between Bryndís and numerous gulls of various species around a custom-built table at which food is prepared and shared. For the first three weeks in February, the video was screened each evening between 6.30 and 11.00pm and was seen as something of an antidote to the long winter nights in Moscow. The museum’s publicity for the screening explained: “This gift is not only for visitors, but for those who are waiting at the bus stop or passers-by. No matter how fast you race past, there's time enough for it to catch the eye. Blue sky, wind, unity and harmony between man and nature - something sorely lacking in the big cities.” Mark comments: “We are delighted to have had the opportunity to show Vanishing Point on the site of this stunning museum dedicated to Darwin and his legacy. It’s a work addressing ideas of interdependence within ecologies, of which humans are a part and certainly not in control. “We believe our knowledge and experience of these relationships is not solely the domain of science but that it should be in the consciousness of all.” Exhibition formed part of the UK-Russia Year of Culture 2014.

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