Yankee Chicken Farm

2004 Performance

As bird flu was gripped Asia between June-December 2004 Niwa regularly visited to a cockerel in the local area and carrying a black board and chalk he would attempt to engage in conversation with the bird. He read from the newspaper and explained the events occurring throughout the world. These included the Iraq war, the American presidential election and devastation caused by typhoons. Here we are brought to contemplate to ourselves what do such animals make of our human tragedies? The more impossible it is communicate with the cockerel, the more our own means of communication in human society is called into question.

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