Solo Exhibition at Tabakalera, San Sebastian, Spain
17 September 2024 – 12 January 2025
Exhibition at Katoenhuis, IFFR, Rotterdam
30 January - 10 February 2025
This installation by artist-filmmaker Jessica Sarah Rinland pairs moving images and audio recordings alongside archival magazine pages showcasing the life’s work of George Shiras 3rd [1859-1942], inventor of the camera trap. Shiras championed photography as an alternative to hunting, the results of which could be shared “with many thousands the world over”—a temporary trap that lives on as an offering.
Projected on the left screen is footage shot by Rinland, Conservators at the Natural History Museum in London are seen through a thermal imaging camera traditionally used in surveillance or hunting. They restore taxidermy specimens originating from Argentina in preparation for relocation to off-site storage. On the right projection screen is infra-red night footage by the nonprofit conservation organization Fundación Rewilding. The black-and-white video shows coypus (giant otters) recently translocated from Europe back to their native habitat in Argentina, the country from which Rinland’s parents emigrated. While currently extinct in Argentina, coypus (or nutrias) are currently classified as an invasive species in much of the European continent.
Pages extracted from the iconic American magazine National Geographic excerpt the work of the “father of wildlife photography,” George Shiras 3rd. Shiras was Inspired by the use of fire in the hunting practices of the Ojibwe people of the Great Lakes of the American Midwest. In the tradition of the Ojibwe people, a controlled flame is held at the bow of the boat gliding along the water. The fire entrances the prey, and the reflection of the light in the eyes of the animals guides the arrows or, in the case of Shiras, signals to trigger the flash and shutter.
One of the first theories of sight, “extramission” proposed that rays of light emitted from the eyes onto the outside world are what allow us to see. Although this theory was disproven long before the invention of flash photography, the reflection of flash in the retina of the eyes captures an effect of eyes glowing from within. Considering how new technology can revive the poetry of a bygone theory, Extramission brings together acts of conservation across time and distant geographies. Situated in the Katoenhuis, which served as a warehouse for cotton and later for tropical fruit from countries including Argentina, consideration is given to how even contemporary acts of care must grapple with the lasting consequences of colonial violence.
- Laura Serejo Genes
