15 June 2009

Stuffed

The centre pages of today's Guardian newspaper feature a photograph of brightly coloured bits of plastic arranged neatly in rows and shading nicely through the colours of the rainbow, and from white to black. Individually, the objects are junk and jetsum: a battered cigarette lighter with "my shop" on the side, a mangled toothbrush, bottle tops. Together, so arranged, they resemble semi-precious stones laid on dark velvet in a cabinet. You wouldn't be surprised to see it as a collage of 'found art' in a degree show.

The punch comes in the caption. All these pieces were found in the stomach of a fledgling Laysan albatross at Kure atoll, and killed it.

I cannot find the photo online, but here is an image from the same imagino-morpho-gut-space, posted by Zern Liew in 2007.


See also here

No comments: