Decoy

In an era of shifting digital boundaries, how will our relationship to nature change? Decoy explores the blurred line between observation and fabrication as a reaction to the hyper-real mythologies of the internet. Artificial Intelligence now acts as a new kind of urban legend, breathing visual life into old folklore so convincingly that the digital myth can feel more real than nature itself. This suspended piece combines two craft forms: the labor-intensive nest building of birds and the mostly abandoned tradition of handmade fishing lures. What does it mean to labor by hand—meticulously constructing this avian architecture—to create a beautiful, tangible object born entirely from fake news?

The work was inspired by a story told to me of an osprey at an Oregon lake that allegedly learned to recognize the tug of a hooked fish, snapping lines to claim the catch. The legend claims the bird would carry the stolen fish back to its nest, leaving the lures to dangle below the structure like a fancy chandelier. While research suggests this is likely a modern urban legend—a tale of nature hacking our technology—it serves as the catalyst for this piece. I have integrated my own lures, inspired by traditional handmade versions now largely replaced by mass-produced plastics, to pin this fleeting digital story into a physical form. This work captures the tension between the dangerous reality of human detritus and the enchanting stories we tell to make sense of our changing environment.