Assemblage of the Flock:
The Bird Project @ The Open Studio, Baroda

Arati Desai

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” Maya Angelou’s quote gives words to the very being of an artist and his creative process. The Bird Project was the opening show of the Open Studio, Baroda and it comprised of a comprehensive collection of the work of more than 100 artists primarily from Baroda as well as from other cities across the country. This large expanse of works dedicated to bird imagery, allowed for the presence of a myriad of visual languages to converge on a subject objectified in a very personal manner. Interestingly, displayed on the walls behind the branches of dried trees, the artworks, accompanied by a sound installation of bird sounds and songs by Mumbai artist Sujiet Poddar, supplemented the effort to recreate a natural environment within a studio space.

As constrained literary metaphors, the portrayal of these winged species saw varied manipulations. A fascination with birds over time may be respondent to the fact that while birds can fly, we as a human race are stuck in our own earthbound existence. They are accessible to us yet out of reach – a paradox that is fruitful creatively. It is often in the personification of the ageless symbol of peace and beauty, a symbol of the religious and of the spirit that the winged ones act as an alternative identity or an extension of the human race and mind, defining the relationship between two beings on several levels like entrapment and freedom.