Mark Prier

Artwork

Follow the Crows, 2006

Follow the Crows is an installation partly inspired by a folk saying: someday you’ll follow the crows for it (meaning: you’ll miss it when it’s gone). Included in the installation are the sculpture Birdhouse Coffin, and the performance video Calling Crows.

Calling Crows was a performance that took place every Wednesday throughout 2005. Each week, I went out on my Newfoundland apartment balcony in a crow mask and black suit to call crows using a crow call.

The full video shows footage from each week chronologically, looping the entire year over and over. The video posted here is a shortened version with selected excerpts from the full version.

From Just Act Natural: A Curatorial Essay by Lisa Visser:
Mark Prier’s performative video Calling Crows captures Mark’s attempt to reach out to the crow community in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Every Wednesday for one year, Mark dressed up in a suit and tie and performed a ritualized, formal call to the crows. Wearing a crow’s mask and armed with a crows call, the artist stood on his balcony and attempted to make contact across species. While courting the crows in conversation, Mark simultaneously documented his own becoming-animal. In his time-lapsed video, Mark begins to emulate bird-like movements while maintaining his humanness in form and in costume. Shivering in the cold and expressively disappointed by the crow’s lack of engagement, the artist creates a performance that is endearingly pathetic; a gesture of emotion is met with silence. The ritual and repetition of the attempted communication converges with Mark’s increasingly disparate relationship between human and animal. Only once or twice in the video can the crow be heard, off-screen, calling back to Mark, connecting the distance between the two species and meeting the artist half-way. Across a deep stretch of imagination I suspect that the crows, maybe, are considering the possibility of reacting to Mark. The silence of animals creates loneliness, which is emphasized in the video by the artist’s definitive isolation from animal and human contact.

A wide shot of a three-storey brick apartment building in winter, with a row of balconies and some snow covering the ground around it. On one of the second storey balconies is a man in a black suit and tie wearing a mask of a crow's beak and face. A brick apartment building balcony: a man in a black suit and tie wears a mask of a crow's beak and face. The man uses a crow call by holding it to his mouth. A side profile of a man in a black suit and tie wearing a mask of a crow's beak and face. He stands in front of a brick wall. A side profile of a man in a black suit and tie wearing a mask of a crow's beak and face. He stands in front of a brick wall. In the background is a snowy scene of a tree-covered hill with a smattering of houses and backyards before it. A side profile of a man in a black suit and tie wearing a mask of a crow's beak and face. In the distance are hills and houses covered in snow. An old television plays a video of a man in a crow mask looking at a hill and some houses. Some birdseed sits before the television, barely visible in the TV's light. An old television plays a video of a man in a crow mask; behind him are some rowhouses. Some birdseed sits before the television, bathed in the TV's light. A wooden coffin standing upright on a wooden floor in front of a white gallery wall. At head height, a hole has been cut and a wooden dowel sticks out from below it, making the coffin into a birdhouse.
A chipboard facade with minimal wooden framing kept upright by three sandbags. The facade stands before a wallpaper mural of a lake amidst pine forest, which can be seen through an open screendoor. A wallpaper mural of a lake amidst pine forest. The mural is installed on a frame before a white gallery wall and sits on a wooden floor. A metal and glass screendoor is part of a chipboard facade. Through the glass, a red canoe sitting on a pile of grass can be seen. A red canoe sits on a pile of swamp grasses, like a funeral pyre. On the canoe, a wooden coffin rests on the canoe yoke and a paddle. A small egg-shaped trailer carrying a television is attached to the canoe. A wooden coffin rests on a pair of wooden paddles and a red canoe. At head height, a hole has been cut and a wooden dowel sticks out from below it, making the coffin into a birdhouse. Swamp grasses are piled beneath the canoe. A wooden coffin rests on a pair of wooden paddles and a red canoe. At head height, a hole has been cut and a wooden dowel sticks out from below it, making the coffin into a birdhouse. Swamp grasses are piled beneath the canoe. A wooden coffin rests on a pair of wooden paddles and a red canoe. At head height, a hole has been cut and a wooden dowel sticks out from below it, making the coffin into a birdhouse. Swamp grasses are piled beneath the canoe. In the background stands a chipboard facade and a wallpaper mural of a lake amidst pine forest. A television playing a video of a man calling crows while wearing a crow mask sits in a egg-shaped trailer full of birdseed. The trailer is attached to a trailer hitch on the back of a red canoe that sits on a pile of swamp grasses. A television playing a video of a man calling crows while wearing a crow mask sits in a egg-shaped trailer full of birdseed.