The Birdhouse Project

by Christian Bermudez

 

As an artist I use vernacular urban elements to address issues such as belonging and immigration. I have employed graffiti, decoration on balconies or house painting to create alternatively readings of the places I decided to work. Nature and science are keystones in my work, as I often utilize plants, flowers and animals in my art projects.

 

The Birdhouse Project gathers inspiration from shoe tossing onto power lines, a common sign in America and Europe. This is an urban element that usually bears negative connotations. I was interested in giving it a new interpretation, by using its placement and aesthetics to open a discussion about what kind of city one wants to live in, and at the same time to present the issue of migration in a subtle way.

 

I was born in Costa Rica and I have been living in Norway for almost 10 years, so I'm an immigrant. It was important to me to create a metaphor of the migratory birds and human immigration. Everybody loves (migratory) birds, but the same does not necessarily apply to (human) immigrants.

 

With The Birdhouse Project my intention was to design and build a temporary house solution to a specific bird, the Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) in order to point out that this is a bird that comes every year to Scandinavia and Russia all the way from Africa. I wanted the city to welcome them. I wanted to offer some hospitality after a long journey.

 

The birdhouses were hung the last week of April 2011 in Lillehammer. The birds arrived after a 7-week travel from Western Africa and after a couple of weeks I had a pair of birds living in one of the houses. They don't choose just any birdhouse, as they look for places that have water nearby, good access to food (insects) no depredators or noisy places. The Pied Flycatcher spends the whole summer in Norway (May-August) so I removed the houses in September 2011 to make them ready for next year.

 

 

The Birdhouse project was commissioned by Kunstnersenteret i Oppland and developed with the economical support of Arts Council Norway.