Listening, to Kins, 2024
Listening, to Kins is a performance of listening to 279 vultures. Seated on a chair, dressed in a brown suit, one member from HP (Hillside Projects) actively listens to a wake of vultures’ tumultuous feast on a carcass, a macabre yet tender act of eating and being eaten, a recycling of life. The performance took place on 25 January 2023 at Jatayu Vulture Restaurant, a vulture conservation project located in Kawasoti in southern Nepal.
The sounds from the feast: hissing, kicking and flapping have, in turn, been transcribed as words that phonetically imitate, resemble, or suggest the sound that they describe, also known as onomatopoeia. The transcribed onomatopoetic words are then presented as subtitles accompanying the video, creating a playful and slightly absurd narration of the act of eating the dead.
This video was produced through generous support during an artist residency in 2023 with PhotoKTM5 at Jatayu Vulture Restaurant in Kawasoti, Nepal, organised by photo.circle Nepal, a platform for photography based in Kathmandu founded in 2007.It was exhibited in Kathmandu as part of the fifth edition of PhotoKTM curated by NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, Shristi Shrestha, Diwas Raja Kc, Prasiit Sthapit, Irina Giri, Shikhar Bhattarai.