Step into an unusual bird concert
April 2025, article
The installation These Birds are Flying to the North immerses you in the liveliest of aviaries. As part of the BIG BANG Festival and afterwards, you can listen to the chirping of the birds next to the cloakroom on the first floor of Amare from 13 April to 25 May.
These Birds are Flying to the North by Belgian composer Serge Verstockt consists of 48 caged mechanical birds. They react to each person's voice and express their joy with cheerful chirping. Once one of them has kicked off the concert, the others join in, and the result can be a pretty decent bird cacophony.
Normally, birds are flying to the South because it gets too cold here in wintertime. But these birds are special: they are flying to the cold North to sing their song in the snow. These Birds Are Flying to the North invites us to redefine our relationship with the environment, highlighting the essential ecological balance in contemporary society. It reminds us that, in a world driven by convenience and consumption, we can still embrace the ecological shift towards a sustainable and harmonious future. The installation also functions as a metaphor for the blurring of the boundaries between the virtual and the real in our modern world.
The birds were integrated in a participative way in Hold Your Horses, the first Grand Opéra de Trash by Verstockt and ChampdAction that was premiered in 2013. These wonderful birds from the Far East now lead their own life and you can encounter them in all sorts of unusual places, including Amare! Step into their world from 13 April till 25 May, but be quick, before they fly off again!
What's on at Amare this month? Check out amare.nl/kunst for all exhibitions
More Amare Stories
