Pleureuses

How our actions have consequences.

 

“Pleureuses”, that's what the extravagant hats that were in vogue around the turn of the century were called. People have long appropriated feathers for all kinds of purposes: military, decoration, ritual, incantation, collection, etc....
But around 1900, demand exploded. It was all the rage in the Western world to use feathers, parts of and even complete birds in and on hats.
To give you an idea, in 1902, the London market sold 1,608 packs of plumes, killing 190,000 egrets. This quirk ensured that birds were slaughtered all over the world and therefore became very endangered in certain regions. This fad has contributed to their extinction for a number of bird species. Wrong is that these practices only stopped with the change of hairstyle. The "bob" came into fashion, hats were not worn. 

 

For the series “Pleureuses” I have used the feathers of ao the white heron as an example. They are cut from a block of tracing paper. The block remains intact with contours visible and the feathers hanging like a “tail”.

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