You must carry me now

The photographic work You Must Carry Me Now is a component of the recent US exhibition by Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson entitled Trout Fishing in America and Other stories. The project was funded and hosted by the Global Institute for Sustainability, based at Arizona State University in Phoenix. In the project, the artists focused on two endangered species still inhabiting the Grand Canyon – one was a fish and the other a bird – the California Condor. Because of a multitude of environmentally compromising human activities, both species are now highly ‘managed’ by humans and for them, conservation efforts constitute critical ‘life support’ systems. The artists worked alongside bird biologists in the field at Vermilion Cliffs (at the North Eastern margins of the Canyon) and in the biological collection at University of Arizona, Tucson they made a series of 14 photographs from frozen condor cadavers. The photographs were then each presented together with a text revealing the individual life and behaviours of each bird as divulged to us by the biologists – information that would otherwise have no purpose and would, in all probability, have been lost. The frozen bodies of these animals are political and are retained in this suspended condition, in part as evidence of the causes of their demise. By far the greatest number of these protected birds dies very young through lead poisoning as a result of feeding from contaminated gut piles discarded by hunters. In exploring the balance between data and affect, the artists mobilise text and image – the numerical tagging and radio transducers still attached in some cases, together with the transcribed accounts of the lives of respective birds – to give an insight into the complex nature of our relationship to them, to ideas of conservation and to the environment more widely.

Exhibition abstract: The idea of the ‘Animal’ is vast and varied. The exhibition questions the nature of animals and our relationship with them. There are many ethical debates around the treatment of animals; in our society certain animals are considered ‘food’, others are loved as pets whilst their kin are used in medical testing. Visually, the importance of our relationship to animals is reflected in a rich history of animal imagery, from cave paintings to contemporary art. How, then, does photography portray our relationships with animals in society today? Carlisle Photo Festival produced this exhibition in collaboration with Visualising Conferences; a series of biennial academic conferences bringing together theorists and practitioners to debate socially and culturally relevant themes as visualised through the medium of photography.