I shot this photo beside the entrance to the George Ignatieff Theatre on the U. of T. campus. Mounted on the wall is a sculpture made of iron rods, creating a mesh that’s ideal for bird nests. I noticed at least two different species nesting in the sculpture—sparrows and grackles. I’m assuming that these are baby sparrows who have been pushed out of their nest by the more aggressive and larger grackles.
The image conveys a certain pathos. It’s not simply that the birds fell and died on the pavement below. They fell and died in a very public space. It’s a heavily traveled sidewalk. Yet the birds went largely unnoticed as they lay there in the middle of their own filth—and ours too. There’s something callous about the cigarette butt.
There’s a relationship between the cigarette butt and the dead birds. It’s not a causal or scientific relationship. I haven’t got words for it. But I think it’s real.
It reminds me of the video released by the BBC that reports a marked increase in birth defects in Fallujah. The Iraqi doctor whom they interview wants to be scientific about things, so she refuses to draw a causal relationship between birth defects and the American occupation. Instead, we view the two in juxtaposition and are left to draw our own conclusion.
But the pathos doesn’t let us be.
I believe that we have to be prepared to encounter harsh images—not so much that we become desensitized — but enough that we don’t allow our sensibilities to devolve into a state of perpetual kitsch.