Study on flying

This project started from a shared admiration of birds between my son and myself. A magic approach to breeding documenting the growth of my son and the birds we have found in our path. A way of honoring care, play and freedom as precious elements.

This project was born from observing my son and his admiration for birds. Since he was 3 years old, Seydú started to view birds with great attention and curiosity. Simultaneously, he started collecting natural elements as bird's feathers.

It was born in me a curiosity, shared with my son, for the processes of birds: nesting, flight and feathers. The magic happened when we began to find nests, feathers, lost birds arrived at our house and I documented this at the same time as the growth of my son and our daily lives. The game then emerged from the collection of feathers and the poetics of flight and care.

Rudolf Steiner, founder of anthroposophy and Waldorf education, regarded birds as a model for the child, particularly in the early stages. For him, birds represented freedom, the ability to fly and the connection to the sky, aspects that Steiner considered transcendental in the early stage of the child before the age of 7. For Waldorf education, the child under this age is still in a process of connecting with the earth and reality, his or her body is forming, gaining strength, and developing a sense of being.

In this process I found similarities between humans and birds: The arm and the feather are slightly different in their bone structure. Both birds and humans collect seeds to disperse them to perpetuate forest regeneration and plant diversity, naming two examples.

In Andean culture birds are not only seen as animals, they have a very important role in the cosmovision and spirituality. they are considered messengers between the human world and the higher world.

This interest led us to the Amaru Bio park, a space that houses wildlife in Cuenca, Ecuador. There are local birds that have been rescued from captivity or that have been found injured and orphaned, here they are healed and cared for.

Therefore the project establishes a dialogue between two parts: one where I document the daily life of my son, emphasizing on care, and other one were I document the love for birds, the flight, the feathers, the collection, the game, the freedom and our relationship with birds.