The tenth international forest art trail in the forest behind the Darmstadt Böllenfall gate on the 15th of August opened. The show on “Art / Nature / Identity” runs until October 4th. (aka)
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A declaration of love to nature
His “cloud cuckoo home” has a sense. Because the many bird species, which he lists almost casually by hand, in which he brings their names with thick black paint on the white background of these rectangular “bird houses” and on their cantilevered roofs, belong to three groups. There are “indigenous” here, there are “international” and there “invasive” species, explains the artist, who has also been out and about a lot since his youth to go birding with his eyes.
On the one hand, this work is a written declaration of love by Fredie Beckman to the diversity of nature – 1100 bird species live in Europe alone, around 600 of which are native to Germany. On the other hand, the installation is also a hidden warning: With increasing global warming, the distribution areas or migration habits of birds have sometimes changed almost dramatically in a very short time. For example, the flamingo, which was once only found in America, Africa or Asia, has changed from an “international” to an “invasive” species, because today it also nests with us.
A source of inspiration
Which in Beckman’s view of the natural whole takes an interpretive step further in relation to his aviaries. “There are always species migrating, others are coming. Just as we humans do today. But we don’t command the birds: ‘Fly back home!’ like we do with immigrants, “he says.
He thinks and lives beyond borders, as evidenced by his written source of inspiration. It is a tattered, often used booklet in which all bird species are listed in several languages. The spectrum ranges from the biologically correct Latin to the English and Dutch to the German name, and the differences in the designation for the same bird always appear large at first glance and depend on the different worlds of ideas that people from different countries have have developed each type. But in the printed juxtaposition it becomes clear: The same bird is always referred to here – just as people can differ in their nationality, but not as beings.
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