Vartiainen, Timo
Birds of Paraskeva
2023 / 1
The goal of the Paraskeva birds sculpture series, which started in the first decade of 2000, is to work as an artist with various winged birds and offer them places for nesting and resting. Places that are not too clean environments: forests, yards and shores.
The birds of Paraskeva participate in creation with their own nesting practices and unpredictable inventions. In one case, the titmice pecked their own heavy pamphlet with their sharp beaks, on a book nailed to the facade of the birdhouse (Pentti Linkola: Can Life Prevail?).
The version of the sculpture series I made for the Rajatalo project is Paraskeva XXII (Target board), which I built in a garage painted with yellow soil paint.
On the outer wall of the garage I painted two target boards with red clay paint and carbon black. The bigger one has 2 flight holes in the size of a tit and a rainbow catcher - 32 mm. From one opening on the same board, the winged ones has access to the birdhouse I built inside the garage, and from the other opening to a small experimental "night motel", which I intended only as a place for the birds to spend the night, to save their energy on cold nights. I got the idea for this on one cold winter night when I noticed a barn owl diving into a steel pipe on a construction site to spend the night! The opening of the smaller target board leads to a larger space covered with hardboard. This could be suitable for an insect or other creature that would fit in a larger apartment.
The name Birds of Paraskeva is based on the memory of my own Karelian grandmother, Paraskeva, who loved and humanized her birds – starlings, titmice, larks and sparrows – with a childlike enthusiasm and emotions. When I was a young man and a bird enthusiast, a "scientist", such silliness seemed inappropriate. Now that I'm older, I've started to appreciate my grandmother's sentimentality, "Holy madness".
