A huge human-scale bower bird’s nest created by artist Andy Holden will go on display as part of a new exhibition at Inverness Museum & Art Gallery this week.
Natural Selection marks the culmination of a five-year collaboration between artist Andy Holden and his father, the ornithologist Peter Holden.
Their collaborative exhibition takes viewers on an ornithological journey, from the building of nests to the collecting of eggs.
Featuring found objects, the human-scale bird’s bower, replica eggs and videos, Natural Selection is composed of two parts and celebrates a diversity of natural forms.
The first part, A Natural History of Nest Building, examines birds’ nests and why they exist in an astounding array of forms.
The second section, A Social History of Egg Collecting, shifts the focus from birds’ nests to the history of egg collecting, from scientific pursuit to a competitive and eccentric pastime which became illegal after the 1954 Protection of Birds Act.
