all photos by Jessica Cadkin

Birds have stirred the imagination of artists, scientists, engineers, and inventors for thousands of years. Their ability to fly has connected and inspired people in both real and abstract ways. Birds also have a unique feature specific to them: feathers. Feathers have evolved to include the full spectrum of visible color and possess a variety of purposes: even though feathers are what allow birds to fly, they also protect, conceal, and are ornamental.

Jessica Cadkin’s installation, “Plume,” is made up of over seventy abstracted feather shapes, layered in small groupings and mounted on clear rods. Constructed from ironed and fused plastic bags, the ‘feathers’ flutter and cast bird-shaped shadows. The choice of colors pulled from the plastic bags represent just a mere fraction of the colors found in nature. The stitching acts as a visual counterbalance, an oblique reference to the manufactured conditions the natural world must now cope with.