pigeontest

Your chance to be encapsulated forever in a new commissioned art piece about pigeon fanciers!

Artist Victoria Melody is making a film and theatre performance about the lives of pigeon fanciers entitled 'The Demographics of a Pigeon Fancier.' With your help she will be staying with pigeon fanciers around Britain and asking questions about what it is like to be a pigeon fancier in Britain today. She will be collecting stories, opinions and facts in order to create a record in history. Her final performance and film will be toured around the UK to arts venues, exhibitions and pigeon fancier's clubhouses.

Can you help by putting Victoria up in your house for one night and letting her film you with your pigeons or can you help her by filling in the questionnaire below and posting to Phoenix Arts Association, 10-14 Waterloo Pl, Brighton, BN2 9NB or download a copy from her website www.victoriamelody.co.uk and email to info@victoriamelody.co.uk For more information please contact Victoria directly by her email or by phone 07957 142380, she would be delighted to answer any questions.

This artwork is supported by The Study Gallery, Brighton Arts Production South East, The RPRA, and British Homing World.

(Please note that this information will be treated with the utmost confidentiality and will not be past on to any dreaded marketing companies!)

"National and cultural stereotypes do play an important role in how people perceive themselves and others, and being aware that these are not trustworthy is a useful thing,” said study author Robert McCrae of the National Institute on Aging.

The project will explore stereotypes associated with making up our English National identity. In this work I want to question contemporary conventions and thought processes by bringing a little known subculture to the fore. Do the people that race pigeons live up to the stereotype that most of us have? Or is that 'picture we have in our heads' just a typical generalisation based on minimal or limited knowledge. It is my intention to collaborate with pigeon fanciers to produce new art works that asks pertinent questions of society and what it is to be English.

When the age-old sport of pigeon racing is mentioned the image that most easily pops into mind is the pigeon fancier. A fifty-year-old, 5 foot 5, pot bellied, individual, holding a pint of bitter in one hand a pigeon in the other hand, with a flat cap on his head. Surely this cannot be true, there are just over 50 thousand fanciers in Britain and they can't all fit this demographic, can they?

That's what I intend to find out, starting in the South East and advancing toward the South West I will stay with fancier families making lists and gathering data, what kind of homes they live in, how much do they weigh, how does this hobby affect relationships with their family and friends. I will meet the pigeons, hear about the one that got away, be given theories, collect anecdotes, stories and poems. Do they fit this invented image we all have?

I will stay with approximately ten pigeon fancier families for one night and two days over the space of a month. I have set up contacts with fanciers and I will find additional fanciers to participate with help from the 'Royal Pigeon Racing Association' I will advertise the project and place a call out for fanciers in magazines and newspapers such as 'British Homing World.' I intend to undertake this research in order to collect material to create a performance/lecture.

This hour-long performance will take the shape of an illustrated lecture, using a variety of video footage and props to convey my attempts at questioning the accuracy of the stereotypes that make Britain, Britain. This will be a richly textured production combining comedy with special effects, mechanical sets, interactive film and live music.

The Royal Pigeon Racing Association loses 1,500 members a year. Young people are not taking up the sport and due to this pigeon racing will eventually become extinct. Peter Bryant the manager of the RPRA said "It's very difficult to get youngsters into the sport. It's a very much full-time commitment looking after birds, and when you've got Sony PlayStations it's difficult to try to get kids to focus on just one thing," An aim within the work is to introduce pigeon racing and the pigeon's role through history to young people. I will be working with two schools 'Bishop of Winchester' and 'St Lukes'; the ages of the pupils will vary from 10-14 year olds. The majority of the work will take place at 'Bishop of Winchester' where pupils from both schools will congregate; the event itself will take place from the school playing field.

Working with pigeon fanciers we will take racing pigeons into schools. Where over a two week period working in the schools, the pupils, teachers and myself will work together to create a day long event In which pupils will choose pigeons and race them across England. This will enable pupils to have the direct experience of participating in a race and experiencing first hand what it is like to be a fancier. During the 2-week period that I will be working in school I will run video art and performance for camera workshops for the pupils. In these workshops pupils will work on test projects and will learn how to make video art using mobile phone cameras/videos and mini DV cameras. They will then use these skills to collaborate in small filming groups and create a record of the event day. These films will be exhibited at The Study Gallery of Modern Art in July and films may be shown as part of my research in my performance/lecture.

Pupils will get the opportunity to learn about pigeons from the invited fanciers, and then write a coded message that will be attached to the pigeon and delivered to the fancier's home. When the pigeons reach their destinations the fanciers who are waiting for them will call me reading out the coded message and the number of the pigeon, this will determine the order of the winners as they come in. A team of code breakers consisting of the fanciers, pupils, and teachers who did not get the opportunity to write a message will decipher the coded messages. Event day will be turned into an event with a pigeon information stall, games, a film tent and prizes. This event day will be a chance for pupils and fanciers to re-enact the using of pigeons for communication. It will give all involved an insight into past history whilst juxtaposing it with technology such as mobile phones and digital cameras that are very in the present.