NESTS
Architectures of dehumanisation in 2030
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Oi! Hey! Can you see me? Yeah, that's me in the photograph. Not bad, hey? I love the colours. It's one of my favourite sunsets yet.
But, you know, that's also me in the nest. Look closer. In the twigs. The rubbish. The months of foraging for materials across the lands of the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin nation. Let us take a moment to pay our respects to their elders, past, present and future, and to you, if you identify as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
I am Magpie. I was born in the year 2030. I pay my respects to all the magpies who have gone before me. My ancestors in this world who guide me towards a future for our species. They say the world has changed. How can I know? They say there was a time when the land was filled with gum trees and wattles. When the horizons spoke of endless Illawarra plums. Before you razed the ground and set up nests of bricks and dead trees, of concrete and metal. Before you turned the ground black and rolled around in those noisy machines you call cars and trucks. It's hard to believe there was a time before that.
This is what my home looks like in 2030, an echo of the things you’ve discarded and left behind, memories of a lifestyle of waste and rejection. Every so often, my children cough the remnants of surgical masks and shards of plastic. They choke on what you have forgotten. This nest is a plea to tell your friends. To warn them of the shape of things as they are in 2022 and the ways they will mutate into 2030. Look into my nest and tell me if you’d live here with me.