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In praise of … Nina Katchadourian In praise of … Nina Katchadourian
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Faced with a long flight, many people take a Valium and doze. Nina Katchadourian, flying from her native California to take up a residency at Dunedin university in New Zealand, retired to the lavatory equipped only with her phone camera and objects found on the plane, along with a black scarf, which she draped on the wall opposite the mirror. Then she created a series of Flemish portraits. "What is art?" asks one of her constructed sentences in the Sorted images of book spines. "Close observation," is the reply. She is funny, provocative, and often unsettling. A vitrine containing a stuffed pet dog resting on a plump cushion was rejected by San Diego's museum of natural history. An outdoor installation involved playing recordings of UN interpreters mimicking bird calls through speakers hidden in trees, while another, Mended Spiderwebs, is a series of images of webs painstakingly repaired with red thread. It's a whole new way of seeing. Faced with a long flight, many people take a Valium and doze. Nina Katchadourian, flying from her native California to take up a residency at Dunedin Public Art Gallery in New Zealand, retired to the lavatory equipped only with her phone camera and objects found on the plane, along with a black scarf, which she draped on the wall opposite the mirror. Then she created a series of Flemish portraits. "What is art?" asks one of her constructed sentences in the Sorted images of book spines. "Close observation," is the reply. She is funny, provocative, and often unsettling. A vitrine containing a stuffed pet dog resting on a plump cushion was rejected by San Diego's museum of natural history. An outdoor installation involved playing recordings of UN interpreters mimicking bird calls through speakers hidden in trees, while another, Mended Spiderwebs, is a series of images of webs painstakingly repaired with red thread. It's a whole new way of seeing.
• This article was amended on 27 April 2012 because it suggested Nina Katchadourian was an artist in residence at "Dunedin university"; the higher education institution in Dunedin is actually called the University of Otago, and Katchadourian was not an artist in residence there but at Dunedin Public Art Gallery. This has been corrected.