bird architecture brings together art and science by highlighting a biotic aesthetic of birds. While the design of birds nests has been considered as a functional adaptation, in this exhibition nests are presented as an aesthetic experience. In Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) Charles Darwin proposed that birds select mates based on a female subjective perception of beauty, and that these aesthetic interests underpin the evolution of ornamental traits. A substratum of sexual selection is sensual selection. Bird Architecture explores this concept with visual and scientific parallels to Darwin's ideas, as further developed by Richard Prum. |
mp Warming (second from left) curates with science from the Prum Lab of Ornithology.
Warming created this piece from her drawings (of the spiraling architecture of bird nests) from collections at Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History. The drawings are montaged with scientific models from the publications in exhibition. Also included are maps used by Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci's codex On the Flight of Birds and his drawings, along with photographs of the Uros (Uru: Qhas Qut suñi), a pre-Incan people who live on self-fashioned floating islands of reed in Lake Titicaca. Architectural plans of Berlin's Reichstag Dome, included in the nest montage, directly reference the creative processes of man and bird.
Photographic works in this exhibit further explore sensual aspects of bird life with artists' depictions of birds and nesting. Many of these works involve the artists nesting themselves. Warming chose to display Maine artist Victor Romanyshyn’s images in diptych arrangements. These parings feature his nature photographs of birds and their habitats, partnered with Romanyshyn's still life images of his studio. Berlin performance artist Hilla Steinert depicts herself as ground-nesting.
The exhibition's concept expands on exhibits in museums of natural history by promoting particulars of underlying scientific exploration relevant to these images. Scientific articles are part of the exhibition. In providing factual evidence of coevolutionary aesthetics alongside germane artworks of poetic meaning, Warming seeks to inspire a deepening in understanding coevolutionary beauty.
The exhibition's concept expands on exhibits in museums of natural history by promoting particulars of underlying scientific exploration relevant to these images. Scientific articles are part of the exhibition. In providing factual evidence of coevolutionary aesthetics alongside germane artworks of poetic meaning, Warming seeks to inspire a deepening in understanding coevolutionary beauty.