Avian Forms

We spoke to artist Jane Edden to hear more about the Flying Jackets in her new Avian Forms exhibition.

Piper PA-31 Navajo, 2012_(c) Jane Edden, Courtesy of Flowers Gallery, London and New York

What inspired the pieces in this exhibition?

I am fascinated by the way people collect, categorise, name and order objects in museums. Especially in the Victorian era.

I am also interested in the human obsession with flight.

Because of the interest in flight and categorisation I decided to look at stuffed birds, and especially small stuffed birds. When you look at a hummingbird, it looks impossible and too beautiful to exist. There is an almost fake look to them. I was trying to recreate that feeling of something so small and so perfect — and then introduce all the ideas about flight.

The Flying Jackets are beautiful — tell us more about those…

Humans are drawn to birds and feathers and flight and I think there is something innately human about wearing feathers. You go to a wedding and people have feathers stuck on their heads and it is the same in Papua New Guinea or Peru. People all over the world wear feathers on hats or coats or on other items of clothing and decoration. Even if you go for a walk in the park — you pick up a feather, twiddle it around and stick it in your button hole — it is just something that we do.

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, 2015_(c) Jane Edden, Courtesy of Flowers Gallery, London and New York

With the Flying Jackets, it was also about them being miniature. If you look at a dolls house you can imagine yourself in the house — you are able to move yourself into that space and imagine what it is like. Many people say with the Flying Jackets, ‘I would like one in my size’ but I think if I made one in life-size it wouldn’t have the same impact at all. Their size allows you to step out of where you are and into your imagination — and that is what interests me.

Some of the Flying Jackets are named after aeroplanes that are themselves named after birds, for example, Osprey. Some of the Flying Jackets are also named after Native Americans, who in turn wore feathers in their headdresses. I like the way by categorising them with these names, it brings the ideas of interaction between humans and birds full circle.

See Avian Forms in the Natural History Gallery at the Horniman Museum and Gardens until 9 October 2016.