These Birds of Temptation

intercalations 6 ... is a queer refrain, populated with both acoustical lines of flight and the sorrows of captivity, wherein the reader-as-exhibition-viewer learns that the adventure of ornithology is as preoccupied with the evolutionary meaning of allopreening among avifauna as it is with their taxonomical domination. ── With contributions creating a kaleidoscopic murmuration of minor ornithologies, including pieces on feathers, flight, song, loss, escape, and evasion, as well as a series of poetic reflections, short stories, and theoretical reflections on birds from Aristotle to Anaïs Nin, among many others.

When we first began to plan this volume back in 2013, we hadn’t expected that it would become a collection so deeply concerned with extinction. Looking at it now, in 2022, this of course makes utmost sense. The diverse contributions in These Birds of Temptation interrogate the role of art and poetry in times of ecological collapse and offer reflections on how birds matter in our making sense of worlds and the earth. Birds, then, are not treated as passive objects but are considered as multi-dimensional beings with inherited and unfolding “life ways,” a concept by environmental philosopher and fellow bird friend, Thom van Dooren.

These Birds of Temptation. Edited by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin. With contributions by Eddie Bartley, Ari Bayuaji, Bik Van der Pol, David Bonter, Xavi Bou, Tiffany Bozic, Lêna Bùi, Bertolt Brecht, Wallace Craig, Mark Dion, Andreas Doepke, Jimmie Durham, Anne Geene, Sophia Gräfe, Mary Ellen Hannibal, Nina Katchadourian, Bernie & Kat Krause, Barbara Marcel, Anaïs Nin, Arjan de Nooy, Megan Prelinger, John Paul Ricco, David Rothenberg, Juliana Spahr, Bruno Schulz, Anna-Sophie Springer, Frank Steinheimer, Yoko Tawada, Anna Tsing, Etienne Turpin, and Francesca Woodman. Design in collaboration with Katharina Tauer.