Video and installation of 365 fired clay birds hand-molded replica of the terracotta bird from the Hellenistic Period Pierides Museum – Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, Larnaca, Cyprus. (325-50 B.C (each 12x7x 5cm). I-beam/s (dimensions variable).
PERFORMANCE:
Before the birds are fired to their final form, while the clay is soft, the birds sit on the ledge of an I-beam on the ceiling. The artist then begins to push each one off the edge of the I-beam and they fall, in slow motion, crashing on the floor, violently deformed from the height distance, and then hand violated, the human fingerprints imprinted on their small fragile frames. Distorted, deformed, they carry on in their new form.
Consensus has it that the earth is being destroyed by humans themselves, and that today we are on the verge of an environmental and ecological collapse. Climate Dystopia is a result of human activity. Climate Change. Environmental damage. Ecocide.
The installation title is a homage to: “Silent Spring”, Rachel Carson, and in turn its title was inspired by a poem by John Keats, "La Belle Dame sans Merci", which contained the lines "The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing."
Silent Spring is a metaphorical title, suggesting a bleak future for the whole natural world, as well as a literal absence of birdsong.
Silent Spring has been translated in over a dozen of languages;
Silent Spring / Der stumme Frühling / Printemps silencieux / Dode lente / Безмолвная весна / Primavera silenziosa/ ...
Video of bird fall: https://youtu.be/hDpkrBQ1gnM
[On floor: 210x300cm, 19 x 19 rows, 6cm apart from each one, and 3 birds in front].
