SERIES | Pigeon Painters
This series uses filmmaking to research the rural, centuries-old, Spanish pigeon sport of colombicultura. It is a collaborative project with my partner, Alex Wight, revisiting and building upon some old work from 2014 when we first encountered colombicultura. In this game, a flock of multicoloured, hand-painted male pigeons compete to seduce a single female pigeon. The closer they get to the female, the more points they receive. If they mate with her, they win the game. The male pigeons are kept and played in leagues by male humans; it is almost-exclusively a sport played by men. Their bright colours help with identification of the individual birds during games, but also serve as an outlet for creative expression for the human keepers. It is a creative expression however that, although done with good intentions, raises questions about the pigeons’ agency.
Through the project, we hope to paint a complex picture of not only the relationship between man and bird, but of love and loss, freedom and control, the beautiful and the mundane. We hope to raise sometimes uncomfortable questions about domestication, enduring traditions and the ethics of interspecies relationships through the lens of pigeons; the most ancient domesticated animal.
