Jessica Sarah Rinland
The installation by artist-filmmaker Jessica Sarah Rinland pairs new moving images and audio recordings with pages from early 20th-century National Geographic magazines. Rinland is internationally recognised for her experimental and unique approach to documentary filmmaking.
In Extramission: The Capture of Glowing Eyes conservators at the Natural History Museum in London are seen through a thermal imaging camera traditionally used in surveillance or hunting. They restore taxidermy specimens from the South American collection in preparation for relocation to off-site storage. Infra-red night-time footage captures endangered animals that have recently been translocated from Europe back to their native habitat in Argentina, the country from which Rinland’s parents emigrated.
Pages extracted from National Geographic excerpt the work of the “father of wildlife photography” George Shiras 3rd. Inspired by the use of fire in the hunting practices of the Ojibwe people of the Great Lakes of the American Midwest, Shiras invented the camera trap. A controlled flame is held at the bow of the boat gliding along the water. The fire entrances the prey, and the reflection of the light in the eyes of the animals guides the arrows or, in the case of Shiras, signals to trigger the flash and shutter. Extramission, one of the earliest theories of sight, proposed that rays of light emitted by the eyes onto the outside world are what allow us to see.
The range of imagery technology crystallizes a sense of foreboding. Shiras championed photography as an alternative to hunting, the results of which could be shared “with many thousands the world over”—a temporary trap that lives on as an offering. As is suggested in the acts of conservation and repatriation that recur in Rinland’s work, contemporary acts of care can expose violences past. The question of what is to be done moving forward is left to the viewer.
