What if we tried to see our architecture from a bird’s perspective?
116 dead birds were hung in the windows of a building on the Ohio State University campus to represent the 1 billion birds killed by buildings each year. Window strike is the term used when birds collide with windows, which they sometimes perceive as transparent throughway, or as reflected sky. Yet, these windows and tall buildings give humans great joy, as we soar up in the air and peer down at the smaller landscape below with bird’s-eye-views.
Thank you to Stephanie Malinich of the Tetrapod collection at the Museum of Biological Diversity. Also to artist Allison Blair, whose dead bird project at Hopkins Hall certainly influenced me. And thanks to my colleagues in the BioPresence Project: Angelika Nelson, Doo-Sung Yoo, Gil Bohrer, Ken Rinaldo, Matt Lewis, Rick Livingston, Stanley Gehrt, Tom Hawkins and TradeMark.
Installed for the BioPresence Exhibition at the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
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