Feeding Birds

di Katherine Yixuan Dong

Feeding Birds #3

martedì 20 ottobre 2020

Zone: 4 - Vittoria, Forlanini

Skulls, candles, shadows… we have already felt the horror atmosphere before we even stepped into EUKENE | GIARDINO. But this is not a dark magical ritual, but an ironic response from nature. To enter the garden, you have to pass through the corridor watched by skulls. These ghast symbols are obviously connected with death, but who can perceive this is also the beginning of a reincarnation. In the venue provided by architect Eugenia Eukene, the artist Alex Bombardieri’s project “Feeding Birds” which started in 2019 during a residency in Korpo (Finland) can be continued in Milan. The skulls made with edible materials for birds (mainly seeds, flour and fat), so that they could come and feed themselves after the long cold season at the beginning of the breeding season. This simple act of eating was transferred by the artist to the visual effect of a bird eating a skull. Just like the inversion of the positions of humans and animals, plants and animals that have suffered long-term human damage now have the chance to dominate mankind. The skull was eaten unscrupulously by the birds and was eroded bit by bit until it disappeared. However the exhaustion of skulls was not the end, but a new beginning. The material with seeds entered the stomach of the bird and was taken to various places in the city, even migrated to more distant unknown places. There the seed regenerates new life.

Life is born from death, the work continues from Korpo (Finland) to Milan, It was further improved with the help of Eugenia Eukene. The screen projection in the garden realizes the presentation of the 2019 resident project, and what it faces is the situation of Milan in 2020-pandemic. The skull in the garden was placed five days before lockdown, people had to imprison themselves in their homes like the unmovable skull. Here, the identities of humans and animals are in contrast again, the free foraging of birds and the forced confinement of humans. We can see the “Feeding Birds” as a dynamic sculpture, which is not constrained by time, has no geographical boundaries, and is even random and uncontrollable. Parallelly, it is functional, the artist provided a nutritious meal for birds. The artist and his collaborating friends recorded the interaction between the birds and the skulls in different ways. Behind the door, there is a video made by Eugenia Eukene. She recorded the experience of sculpture in her garden during lockdown in a comedic way. Perhaps when the viewers experienced the heavy scene in the garden and was about to leave, the video glimpsed before going out can give them a little relief. The bird eating the skeleton became a comedian, while the astronaut in front of the moon floated and seemed to be looking for a new habitable home.