KUDOS AV #1 2023

Aarushi Zarthoshtimanesh, M(Othering)

M(OTHERING), Aarushi Zarthoshtimanesh from Arc @ UNSW A&D on Vimeo.

This moving image piece is a performative practice of thinking and ideating through movement and the signs- symbols that form their own language. The medium I use to embody the devastation of care, loss and identity, is the life-story of the Asian Cuckoo bird and the Crow – both as mothers/ carers – lamenting their fates in different ways.
Re-enacting the supposed nature and nurture of home(s) we’re made to believe in.

The Asian koel (koyal) bird is one that doesn’t make her own nest for her eggs/ children to grow up in. Instead, she perches in the nests of other crows who have already given birth and usually pushes aside the Crow’s eggs, making room for her children there instead. The koels in that way grow up with the violent lineage of erasure, of displacement and the need to keep fighting to even survive. But never taught to build a home, in this way the mother does what she can to keep her eggs away from danger.
Drawing parallels with these acts of survival, I embody the Koyal through and artist and dancer Angelica Joy, investigates the role of the Crow. Between symbolism and repetition our identities find themselves lost in the amorphous borders of geography and memory in this sonorous world.