Scarecrows — Politics in My Backyard
2024 - 2025
Print, publication
“This project investigates a tense and violent relationship between humans and crows—two intelligent species coexisting on contested ground. Through photography, found material, and personal dialogue, the project documents how crows, deemed vermin for damaging fruit crops, become targets of eradication. The artist’s landlord, a farmer, recalls caging dozens of crows after years of fruit loss.
This intimate yet unsettling exchange prompts deeper questions:
What drives humans to punish animals for surviving? Who decides what lives are expendable? The work challenges viewers to confront the ethics of control, coexistence, and the politics embedded in everyday landscapes.”
Text from the BioDesign website: read here.
Scarecrows — Politics in My Backyard has been exhibited in group exhibitions at Landhuis Amelisweerd, as a result of the BioDesign Challenge, and at FOTODOK during What Grows in Soft Conditions.
For more information check @whatgrows.hku / @hku.photography / @fotodok.nl
Photograph by Lobke Besselink
Photograph by Chaim Eijsten
© 2025 Eileen Udo