Crow Gifts
2025, interspecies reciprocity

Crow Gifts are a collection of objects gifted to me by my crow neighbours for the food and water I leave for them in the Bird Park Survival Station. The project started in 2016 with a gift of a pebble and has evolved to include objects and materials gifted from, and typical to the character of East Vancouver, an urban area of diverse populations and close to an Inlet. Some of the gifts have decomposed over the years because they’re organic material, such as mussel shells and regurgitated pellets. The gifts have meaning in addition to being ‘thank you’ notes. The female neighbour leaves a regurgitated pellet of food each spring, exactly like the ones she feeds her newly hatched babies. Some gifts resemble the food I gave them, such as the barnacle formation that was left next to the plate of popcorn I provided.

The Crow Gifts are displayed in a vitrine with the dates pencilled as to when they were gifted.

exhibitions

2025 group exhibition “Near Dwellers as Indwellers”, Both Kinds Project Space, curated by Daphne Plessner, Vancouver, BC, Canada