These geese are part of a global, public-participatory piece I am working on in collaboration with Professor Stuart Bearhop of Exeter University. I am sending out 10,000 postcards in the shape of migratory geese all over the world, asking people to write on them and post them back to me. Those that return to complete their ‘migration’ will hang in a huge installation in the shape of a flock of birds at Hope Hall, Heavitree in Exeter during Devon Open Studios in September.

As individuals, birds are vulnerable, insignificant - en masse, in migration, they signify a powerful force of nature: the desire to move, to return as part of a great lifecycle. They are reminders of our individuality and our part in society as humans, of our indivisibility from community. We see in them also metaphorical and physical parallels to ourselves as travellers in the world. Art is about understanding our place in the world: following the migration of the cards, and through them, the birds, re-explores our relationship with our identity, our environment and our sense of place.

The postcards are at the mercy of people and fate – some will never be sent back, some will get lost en route, of those that make it back, some will be disfigured, and yet they all tell a story of where they have come from. For a moment, the community where the postcard and bird left are linked with the viewer here. The project has been developed and promoted using contemporary technology and social media, such as twitter and Facebook, yet by relying on physical postcards it asks questions of our desire for communication. Many of the cards have been carried by hand to other countries and use the centuries-old method of a postal service to bring them back to me.

The project can be followed online on a website

www.allaboutmigration.com

which can be accessed directly through the QR code and web address on the cards. An online map and postcodes from returning geese allows the artist to track the cards, much like bird-ringing and satellite tracking devices used by scientists to track real birds’ migration.

With grateful thanks to The University of Exeter, South West Water, Exeter Arts Council, Websites.ca, Devon Open Studios, Helpful Holidays, Safe Hands and others for helping this project fly…