I am beginning to send out my ‘pigeon post’ postcards (aka ‘billing and cooing’). These cards will be a part of the exhibition at NSCAD University but will also be part of other shows – in particular Mailbox 141 in Melbourne, a wonderfully quirky exhibtion space in central Melbourne that consists of 19 old pigeon holes, or mailboxes, and run by Martina Copley and Shanley McBurney.
The cards I am sending have text on both
sides, one side printed the other side hand written. The printed side consists of words that naturalists use in field guides to describe the sound of pigeons singing, such as ‘oom oom oom’ and ‘rackitty-coo rackitty-coo’. The hand written text consists of listed diseases that can spread to humans and/or from which the pigeons suffer. I am sending postcards through the postal system as a kind of metaphor for the ancient role of the pigeon post and the carrier/homing pigeon. With each card representing one bird, the songs and the
diseases travel together in text form through the contemporary postal
system. As many as 200 cards will be sent over a period of time and to a number of addresses. The postcards represent [directly replace] the birds – as singers, as the carriers of messages and as carriers of disease.
