Bystander
Assemblage, 2018
Bird skeleton, canvas, paint, thread, nails, wood box
5.75" x 7.75" x 2.5"
A bird watcher’s paradise, over 180 species of birds have been recorded along the Aleutian Chain. Of these, 129 are regular migrants, 54 of which breed in the chain. Another 25 are year-round residents. The rest are rare visitors, mostly from Asia and seen only in the Near Islands, including Attu.
There is no longer a Unangax presence on the island of Attu. There are no Russian missionaries or fur traders, no combat soldiers. The Navy Town established at Massacre Bay after the war was abandoned in the 1960s. The small rotating crew of US Coast Guardsman who ran Attu’s LORAN Station left in 2010. The non-native rats and foxes have also been removed, leaving the island to heal through its native species and wild systems.
“Indeed, the product of the Aleutian environment were what drew Russian traders to the area, which in turn caused the eventual decline of the Aleut population. The whole history of human activity in the Aleutian region has been of a similar nature: the environment and the people have always been intertwined, sometimes leading to the destruction of one, sometimes to the destruction of the other, but neither has ever been indifferent to the other.”
-Gary C. Stein
