Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Illustration
First Advisor
Susan Doyle
Second Advisor
Calef Brown
Third Advisor
Sage Gerson
Abstract
This thesis tells the tale of bird-human relationships and what it means to live alongside one another, subverting the hierarchical view of humans as above birds inherited from colonial history. It asks how the practice of illustration can function as a site of Two-Eyed Seeing, where scientific and local knowledge are held together as an entangled narrative. It also examines how mendongeng (storytelling), as I have experienced it within Indonesian culture and everyday contexts, can help us understand birds as a companion species with their own agency.
This project takes two forms: first, a picture book titled Sun Bird, an original fable inspired by Indonesian folktales; and second, this written thesis, which explores Indonesian bird–human relationships within cultural and historical contexts. Each chapter is structured around an Indonesian bird: Raja Udang, Cenderawasih, Jalak Bali, and Merpati, and offers a different way of seeing, knowing, and being with them. Guided by Two-Eyed Seeing, a methodology devised by Mi’kmaw Elder Dr. Albert Marshall, this research moves between autoethnographic reflection on my memories of bird-keeping, close readings of postcolonial and ethno-ornithological scholarship, and iterative processes of illustration. Working across drawing and painting, I engage the flat visual plane of Indonesian visual traditions, known as ruang waktu datar, and bridge the cultural research with my studio practice.
My work situates acts of tending, naming, and storytelling as central to the formation of closer bird-human relationships, revealing an intimate connection among language, local knowledge, and reciprocity. It positions illustration and mendongeng as an intimate approach for untangling the nature-culture binary, arguing that the fable can serve as a space through which non-human agency is expressed. This project ultimately resides within the in-between, the entangled middle ground, where humans and non-humans share space in the world and where a different kind of seeing becomes possible.
Recommended Citation
Ludin, Airien, "Kicau Kericau: The Chirps and Warbles of a Bird-Human Story" (2026). Masters Theses. 1667.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1667
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, Folklore Commons, Illustration Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons