Parakeet. 2011.

Self Centred Object #6. Parakeet Trap. 2011.

Self Centred Object #6. Parakeet Trap. 2011.

Self Centred Object #6. Parakeet Trap. 2011. Parakeet flying past.

Self Centred Object #6. Parakeet Trap. 2011. Parakeet flying past.

Self Centred Object #6. Parakeet Trap. 2011.

Parakeet Trap is a work in the series Self Centred Objects, clandestine street furnishings that have been made or imagined for a London neighbourhood. For this project a trap has been designed in which to catch Indian ring-necked parakeets which have colonised the neighbourhood. Regarded as an invasive species, and in 2009 declared fair game to “shoot” (London Evening Standard October 1, 2009), these birds are construed in this project as an opportunity to tame a bird and teach it to speak. As it happens, the attempt to trap a bird has been unsuccessful. Unlike many birds indigenous to suburban gardens in the British Isles, Parakeets are higly alert and wary of entering a structure with which they are not familiar, even if there is food inside. Instead, the only creatures to be trapped is a crow (promptly released), and a squirrel who destroyed the trap by eating its way through the trap’s wicker mesh.

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