Historically, the act of adornment; wearing jewellery; a badge or an amulet, was a means to tell the world who we are, what we stand for, or whom we would like to be. These relatively small objects had the potential to speak of large issues. The works in this collection, incorporate found materials that appear to have little monetary value, shells, quills, minerals etc, yet they demonstrate the rich biodiversity needed by the other species that humanity lives alongside. These works distil thoughts and ideas into a badge of affiliation, a momenta mori for a world whose biodiversity is reducing year on year.
EAGLE
Scotland holds almost the entire UK population of golden eagles. With wingspans of over two meters and plummeting speeds of 150 mph, they are both a revered and persecuted species. They typically avoid developed areas, in the Hebrides they occupy vast, remote, inaccessible places, inhabiting nests that have been in use for many generations, and in some cases renovating eyries that lay abandoned for decades. In many indigenous communities, the eagle has played a significant role in ceremonies that honour periods of transition, beginnings and endings, when the air is thin and people can enter into rare places that are not quite earthly.
The eagle’s feet exhibited here are those of a juvenile female (H48) * who flew too close to civilisation (our village) and was killed in a collision with electrical cables. Her four toed, feathered feet could exert a massive pressure of over 400 pounds per square inch. Her loss was mourned in the village.

* The death of this eagle was logged by Nature Scotland as accidental.
It’s inclusion in this exhibit is under licence No 316158 to safeguard protected species.