The bird and feather forms that recur in Aladogan’s work predate the desert trip; she’s always had a fascination with nature, to the point that she almost studied biology after art school as a way to deepen her artistic research into the subject. Her clay-bird thesis — the sole surviving pieces of which are pictured above — was followed in 2002 with an installation called Dendogram Room, depicting crumpled ceramic sheep seemingly on life support.