Our chalets at Luangwa River Lodge featured boardwalks leading to the river. A troop of baboons used this area as a passageway and playground. They would often sit outside my window, their shapes dimly visible through the bamboo curtains that covered the screened doors to our chalets. I take advantage of the abstracting power of those curtains. The distance of the baboons from the curtain, as well as the intensity and direction of the light, determines how much the curtain abstracts them. Just as these playful baboons played tricks on each other and on lodge guests, the screen itself plays tricks with our perception. What is that blurred figure behind the door and what does it want with us?
Baboons mimic humans, and when abstracted in this manor, this baboon becomes incongruously human.