On Inga Tillere’s film for Pigeon Gatherings, a song by Johny Brown
Pressed into print as if film were a matter
Of air and dream wishes,
Inga Tillere empathises with partner
Johny Brown’s pigeon croon
As she breathes beside city birds
Seeking to capture their timelessness
And their spirit by cyanotype printing,
A 182 year old process moving the image
Back before Melies and projecting it across
The eye’s canvas with the evocative blue
Of sad moons. To showcase this song
Sung by a sepia scented Sinatra
To celebrate how in wartime 32 rats
With wings became doves and were
Granted the PDSA medal and more;
A second meaning, as pigeons become
Commentators; a feature and frame
For all cities, excreting their judgement
From their leaf laced courts high above.
As Tillere lines up her shots of birds
And Brown, our eye alters, and with it
Our minds as time travel takes place
Through her craft. For hers is an
Immaculate choice and this old
Through her craft. For hers is an
Immaculate choice and this old
Technique conjures quantums in which
All time is existing as the gatherings
Ghost through blue shafts of pulsating
Light and Lazarus shadow. In just under
Three minutes this artist and filmmaker
Conjures sound spells and mind magic
As narratives are engendered and scenes
Emerge from each shot. The avian artists
Engage across azure’s nimble network
Brown on a bench or step watching
Becomes as one with their sky
Through blue blots
And the film itself is alive as time
Assumes texture. Only Tillere has the vision
And the expertise to remind us
That all about us are stories that even
The angels or Simon Stylites long forgot.
David Erdos 11/7/24
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