The Chicken Stampede

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Photo by Florence Keeley, 2010.

In 2009-10, in an absurd and fantastical attempt at emphasising the sterility of contemporary culture, George Egerton-Warburton endeavoured to organise a stampede of 500 chickens down Smith Street, Collingwood. There, a surplus of food donated by local restaurants was to be made available to the gaggle of excited poultry, before they were carefully mustered into the backyard of Next Wave Festival director, Jeff Khan, to fertilise it for the upcoming gardening season. At the conclusion of the stampede, the chickens were to be given away to members of the public, to take home and care for, in the interest of self-sufficiency.

Hear the chickens here.

The Chicken Stampede is a performance, exhibition and artist book that unfolds the ideas and processes behind this visionary and ambitious project. Each of the project’s elements reveal how, despite encountering much resistance towards his idea, Egerton-Warburton maintains that it is at once shocking, completely reasonable, and very necessary that we should see these chickens on our streets.

Check out The Chicken Stampede on Facebook.

Supporters: Department of Community and the Arts – Western Australia, the Australia Council for the Arts, Lamington Drive

Artist/s:

George Egerton-Warburton

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