Pump House Gallery is pleased to present The Return of the Native by artist Suky Best, a series of short digital animations and prints that ‘reintroduce’ formerly indigenous wildlife to the contemporary landscape of the East Anglian Fenland, London and the South East. Exhibited for the first time in London, Best extends the work that began in the Fens with a body of newly commissioned work using the landscape of London and Battersea Park to highlight the current decline of biodiversity in urban areas.
To create her work Best finds museum specimens of extinct or endangered species such as the Bearded Tit and Large Copper Butterfly. These are then recorded and meticulously reanimated before being reintegrated digitally into an appropriate habitat. Best’s animations and prints possess an awkward and sad beauty. The slightly studied and stylised nature of each composition, in which the respective elements somehow don’t quite fit together, elicit a haunting and disquieting sense of loss. This feeling is magnified by the mode of display, in which each of Best’s delicate animations are shown on small screens.
Return of the Native is a Film and Video Umbrella Touring Exhibition.
