How can art and science work together to make room for birds?
In Norway, we have lost more than 30 per cent of the total bird population in recent decades and many species are in danger of disappearing for good. The situation for seabirds is dramatic, with a reduction of 70-90% for several species over the past decades. This is an ecological disaster where human behaviour is the main cause.
Anchored in the project The Conference of the Birds and in collaboration with NOBA (Norwegian BioArt Arena), the seminar provided an insight into how we, through interdisciplinary exchange between art and science, are working to draw attention to the birds’ place and presence in our world. It is about integrating birds into our culture and activating a physical and emotional engagement with birds by looking at the world from a bird’s eye view.
Image for poster/Features image: Jan Eerala
In this seminar in collaboration with Norwegian Bioart Arena, we presented some of the projects in The Conference of the Birds to show how it is possible to work with art as a catalyst for change. The seminar took place in Vitenparken, Ås Campus the 9th November 2023.
SEMINAR PROGRAM
Chorus Sinensis – Video work from the Finnish project in The Conference of the Birds.
Chorus sinensis is an audiovisual choral work dedicated to the disliked cormorant. It is the Finnish project from The Conference of the Birds and was produced from 2019-2022 in the coastal areas of the Bothnian Sea, where human and seabird territories overlap.
The work asks: Is the cormorant worthy a song sung by humans? Can poems be written about a bird that never sings, and about a bird that many see as a nuisance? How can the cormorant’s story be told in the future?
The work combines video, photography, text and sound recordings of the cormorant colonies made by the late artist Jan Eerala, with a choral composition inspired by the cormorant written by composer and sound artist Lau Nau and performed by the Poseidon Choir. Chorus sinesis is curated by Ulla Taipale for The Conference of the Birds. Video: Jan Eerala
How can art and science together create different perspectives? Introduction to NOBA and the collaboration with The Conference of the Birds by Solveig Mary Molvær Arnesen, Vitenparken.
More-than-human art for endangered birds.
Introduction to the project The Conference of the Birds by curator and artist Ulrika Jansson (SE) and Eva Bakkeslett (NO).
The art of changing perspective: what can birds and other species teach us about urban development?
Cecilie Sachs Olsen, Professor of Art in Society, Department of Aesthetics, OsloMet.
In our time, we have lost sight of birds. We build in their nesting areas. We fish their food from the sea and our agriculture and forestry no longer take birds into account. In addition, man-made climate change is making it difficult for birds to survive in their usual habitats and many birds are fleeing to cities where they are not welcome. Researcher Cecilie Sachs Olsen reflects on the (lack of) more-than-human perspectives in urban development and how art can be a catalyst for change.
Ahoo Ahoo – eiderducks and people exchange cultures
The co-operation between eiders and humans has traditions dating back to Viking times. Despite the sharp decline of eiders in Norway, Selvær in Træna municipality has one of the largest colonies in Norway. On the island, there is an unbroken tradition of facilitating eider nesting by building eider houses along the shoreline of the island where the eiders nest. Artist and curator Eva Bakkeslett and photographer/artist Karoline Hjorth from Eyes as Big as Plates talk about their work to communicate this unique cultural exchange between people and eiders on Selvær.
Varelse/Værelse
Artist and curator Ulrika Jansson talks about the activities carried out in the Swedish project Varelse/Værelse, focusing on the former industrial harbour Frihamnen in Gothenburg, where a new residential area is now being built. The invited artists, Pernilla Ljungkvist and Cristoph Matt, are experimenting with different methods to bring the audience into deeper contact with the site and the birds. They explore the possibilities of combining artistic, emotional experiences with facts that can act as catalysts for change.
Panel dialogue with Cecilie Sachs Olsen, Ulrika Jansson, Eva Bakkeslett and NOBA.
