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'Giggling Softly, Smiling Big', Group Show at WallStreet Offspace, Fribourg

Whenever I see a torn up mass of feathers and blood on the road I always wonder what happened to the bird. Did it get hit by a car? Hunted by a pred- ator? It feels like a waste of life just to become a pile of mashed up bones that eventually ooze into the soft pavement. Mickey’s dog Ace found three baby birds by the train tracks when we were taking her for a walk the other day. I don’t know why we walk over there anyway. The trains barrel through these dry dusty coastal towns blowing their horns so everyone knows they’re coming. At dusk it’s hard to see, so the drivers honk extra hard to make sure no one is on the tracks. The light after the sun sets makes everything look like something else. You can see, but, you can’t tell how far away things are, or tell the difference between a tall cactus and a person. But dusk is when the rabbits come out, so Mickey’s dog really likes this time of day, I think. She’s really curious about them. I don’t think she’d hurt them or anything but, she wants to know what they’re about.

How we knew Ace found those birds was she started acting all weird and sad. She was hovering in the same spot for a while, head down looking at the dirt and whimpering a bit. Dogs evolved to mimic humans’ facial ex- pressions. So her eyebrows were all furrowed and we could tell something wasn’t right. I figured they were dead cause they weren’t making much noise, and it was dusk so I couldn’t see.

There’s no God in nature so I don’t really see why there should be one for humans. I mean, there’s no good and evil in the animal kingdom. We just stumbled upon these shriveled up babies and felt bad for them. They would have died probably, and no one would have cared. I scooped them up with my hands even though I think you’re not supposed to do that. But we figured the mother wasn’t coming back. Their heads were bigger than their bodies. Their veins pumped under grayish transparent skin.

We set them up in a shoebox at Mickey’s place, which they seemed to be fine with. Every few hours I fed them some refrigerated worms I bought from a hardware store. On day two I opened the box and the smallest one was dead. The other two grew up. They became swallows, the ones that fly all the time and never touch the ground.

Birds can’t mimic humans’ facial expressions. Neither can rabbits, or cats, or fish.

What if all living things had human faces. Sunflowers squinting their eyes, turning their heads and smiling towards the sun. I’d like to see that.

— Christina Gigliotti

9.1.21 — 21.2.21

Broken Promises Crew, Virginie Jemmely, Loren Kagny, Maren Karlson, Gaïa Lamarre

Photo by Guillaume Python

WallStreet Offspace

'ABSINTHE', Group Show Curated by PLAGUE at Smena, Kazan

'Pupila' by Elizabeth Burmann Littin at Two seven two gallery, Toronto

'Auxiliary Lights' by Kai Philip Trausenegger at Bildraum 07, Vienna

'Inferno' by Matthew Tully Dugan at Lomex, New York

'Зamok', Off-Site Group Project at dentistry Dr. Blumkin, Moscow

'Dog, No Leash', Group Show at Spazio Orr, Brescia

'Syllables in Heart' by Thomas Bremerstent at Salgshallen, Oslo

'Out-of-place artifact', Off-Site Project by Artem Briukhov in Birsk Fortress, Bi

'Gardening' by Daniel Drabek at Toni Areal, Zurich

'HALF TRUTHS', Group Show at Hackney Road, E2 8ET, London

'Unknown Unknowns' by Christian Roncea at West End, The Hague

'Thinking About Things That Are Thinking' by Nicolás Lamas at Meessen De Clercq,

‘Funny / Sad’, Group Show by Ian Bruner, Don Elektro & Halo, curated by Rhizome P

'Don’t Die', Group Show at No Gallery, New York

'Almost Begin' by Bronson Smillie at Afternoon Projects, Vancouver

'I'll Carry Your Heart's Gray Wing with a Trembling Hand to My Old Age', Group Sh

'hapy like a fly' by Clément Courgeon at Colette Mariana, Barcelona

'Fear of the Dark' by Jack Evans at Soup, London

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