About The Birds
Curated by Bob Bicknell-Knight
Anastasiia Krapivina, Kroplya, Denis Kudrjasov, Olev Kuma, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen, Kertu Rannula, Nora Schmelter, Aidan Timmer and Edvard Vellevoog
11th – 22nd June 2025
Uus Rada, Raja tn 11a, 12616 Tallinn, EE
The curatorial platform isthisit? is excited to present About The Birds, an exhibition at Uus Rada that explores house sparrows, their ubiquity and resilience, alongside their status as invasive pests. Stemming from an interest in how pervasive and common this species of bird has become, and how they have spread all over the world, About The Birds is an exhibition exploring ideas surrounding the home, transformation and change.
Each of the ten international artists in the exhibition was provided with a custom-built wooden bird house, made specifically for house sparrows. They were given free reign with what to do with the structure, enabling the artists to produce a new work of art that echoes their ongoing practice whilst asking them to reflect on their own relationship to this common bird.
Due to the project and initial prompt, many of the participants took the opportunity to reflect on what home means to them. Anastasiia Krapivina decided to coat her bird house, A hut, in natural gesso, evoking the whitewashed surfaces of traditional Ukrainian clay houses, whilst Edvard Vellevoog’s Heap of a home takes the form of a cover-dress made from found objects, picked up and discovered during daily flight paths to and from his familial home. Reflecting on the ephemeral nature of homes, Kroplya used antiseptics to create ⠙⠧⠇⠀⠧⠇⠾⠚⠻⠀⠚⠎⠒⠀⠛⠊⠯⠚⠎, a bird house embellished with temporary spots which will fade over time.
Although house sparrows have lived with and around human beings for many centuries, they are known to be aggressive and territorial, especially around nesting season. After being attacked by sparrows on two separate occasions, Kertu Rannula decided to create the bird fatale, a stiletto-heeled bird house that evidently doesn’t fuck around. Decorated with broken tree branches and covered in a thick layer of black industrial paint, Olev Kuma’s Invader appears to be the nest of an ancient, omen-esque creature, having supplanted the original homeowner.
Within Europe bird houses traditionally functioned as traps to capture birds for their eggs and meat, but in contemporary times they are used to support bird conservation. Inspired by his parent’s bird house being attacked by a woodpecker, Denis Kudrjašov reinforced his bird house, Beak mirror, with a perforated metal sheet, protecting it against future agitators. In contrast, Bob Bicknell-Knight’s Vault resembles a concrete mausoleum, distorting the houses’ original purpose, whilst Aidan Timmer trapped his bird house, Glass is an indiscriminate killer, within a clear acrylic cuboid adorned with the silhouettes of different birds, deterring any potential collisions.
Many articles stress that a bird house should blend in with its natural environment, making it harder for predators to find. Nora Schmelter took this idea literally for the installation In Plain Sight. A video recording within the gallery shows Schmelter’s bird house installed on a tree directly opposite Uus Rada, subtly blending into the background, imagining a future where the tree continues to grow and absorbs the house altogether. Utilising the bird house as a mould and disregarding the original wooden structure, Rosa-Maria Nuutinen’s Feeding and pumping, feeding and pumping is the result of blowing molten glass into the centre of her bird house. What’s left is a glass organ inhabiting a limbo-like state of existence, unsure of its intended function.
BOB BICKNELL-KNIGHT 