Inventions and Extinctions

Liffey Gallery, 2016

Inventions come and go, but you can never reinvent a species. These pieces tell the stories of lost New Zealand birds and the manmade inventions that were arriving on the scene as these avian rarities were making their departure.

In the 1840s the first postage stamps appeared and Diffenbach's Rail disappeared

In the 1870s the penny farthing hit the streets and the NZ Quail hit the wall

In the 1890s sharpening pencils was mechanised and the Stephens Island Wren was neutralised

In the 1910s people began doing crosswords and the Huia was done in

In the 1960s the first cassette tapes rolled and the Saddleback diced with death

In the 1960s barcodes came in and the Bush Wren checked out