Self-Portrait as a Bird (Killed by Window Glass)

By Maggie Wang

Shen Jiaqi - Interrupted Momentum 1 (2019), Acrylic on wood panel, 51 × 41 cm
Image description: A bird with white and brown feathers is surrounded by abstract, orange-and-yellow lines. The bird is depicted in mid-flight, with its wings spread out. Long, orange lines, resembling ropes, are wrapped around the bird’s neck and tail. These lines are interrupted by a rectangular, window-like frame in the background. Beyond the window are blue, rigid, rectangular structures.

Self-Portrait as a Bird (Killed by Window Glass)

Wait. Somewhere last night a bird lost half its body.
Somewhere this morning a gas flare burns brighter.
Somewhere the sun shrinks its light in fear. Somewhere
the bird remembers a stream. Somewhere a stream
packs up its bed. Somewhere the new maps are already
printed. Wait. How much would you give to know
someone who looked like you? Somewhere
a second splits the end off of a breath. Somewhere
a glassblower makes a hatchet of a window. Some
where will turn and turn and not find its way out. Wait.
The satellites say there’s only one kind of weather.
Somewhere the open sky is a trap. Somewhere I am
avoiding the sky. Somewhere a scavenger pulls
the clouds low for me. Somewhere the cows are lying
down before the storm. Wait. Somewhere the bird
floats belly-up. A dead jellyfish in a catafalque of
water. A dead krill in the arms of a jellyfish.
A dead plankter in the crosshairs of a krill. A bird’s
last breath in the stomach of the plankter. Wait.

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Shen Jiaqi - Interrupted Momentum 2 (2019), Acrylic on wood panel, 51 × 41 cm
Image description: A bird with blue feathers is depicted in mid-flight, with its wings spread out. It is surrounded by abstract, blue lines. It has been captured by a piece of rope, which wraps around its neck and body. The bird’s yellow beak is agape. In the background, tall, dark, geometric structures loom, interrupted by abstract blocks of neon-green, resembling rays of light. 

His Innocence and I Lie on the Uncut Grass

Above, the geese make small wind in their flying.
Their wings remind me of housework. What
is hanging out the laundry for if not finding a home?
And why scrape your knees raw wiping clean
the hardwood if not to chase out old seasons?
Around us, the slugs count the hours till nightfall.
Their bodies grow larger by each peal of the church
bells, their backs pulsing like a strobe in a nightclub
I will never dance in. A woman I lived with once
far from here suggested we line the garden with sea
shells. The salt is foreign to them. At the rubbing
of the rough shore against their faces, they shrink
away. Unlike us, they have time to be frightened.
I take her lead, and still, the lettuce leaves tremble.
The hunger of summer is indifferent to them.
The geese are brushing the end-times closer with
their early departure. The sea wind has upset the soil.

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Maggie Wang's recent work appears in berlin lit, Brooklyn Review, and Wet Grain. Her debut pamphlet, The Sun on the Tip of a Snail's Shell, was published by Hazel Press in September 2022.

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Shen Jiaqi is a Singaporean artist whose practice examines themes of individual sanctuaries amidst perennial changes of the urban environment, culmination of routines within established boundaries, and independent constraints in relation to the city and its developments.  By examining the conditions for spaces that suggest comfort, privacy and security to manifest, she hopes to unpack the effects that the transitory nature of urban spaces have on urbanites/city-dwelling individuals. Drawing from the collective subconscious of yearning for a safe respite within the franticness of the city, her series of works evoke interpretations towards familiar yet fictional suggestions of spaces. 

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