Sculpture Meets Ecological Science: Marijana Tadic's Wandering Albatross Exhibitions and the Concept of Philopatry

The concept of philopatry is most often applied to animal, bird and insect populations. As such, it is closely connected to the disciplines of zoology, animal science, behavioural ecology and non-human genetics. Only rarely (in reality, almost never) is this concept deployed in relation to human population movement. Yet, as a result of colonisation, globalisation, intermarriage, wars, political unrest and other diasporic forces, increasing numbers of migrants and asylum seekers now settle in places far away from their countries of birth. Travel, often involving long distances back and forth between people's adoptive and natal homelands, and frequently taking place on a repetitive, seasonal, basis, has become a significant contemporary phenomenon. In the Yugoslav-born, Australian conceptual sculptor Marijana Tadić's recent installation and sculptural exhibitions, collectively titled Wandering Albatross, exhibited in South Australia February-March 2011, the artist has appropriated the concept of philopatry, applying it to ideas about contemporary patterns of migrancy with thrilling conceptual and aesthetic results.