Dawn Chorus 2024

Dawn Chorus is an immersive sound installation created specifically for the context of Belvedere 21. The work explores the intersections of migration, labour and world-making. The project draws inspiration from the remarkable story of Angela Piskernik, an Austro-Slovenian scientist who successfully campaigned to halt the export of songbirds from Yugoslavia in the late 1950s just as the Non-Aligned Movement was being founded on the Brijuni Islands in former Yugoslavia drawing on the principles of the Bandung Conference. This narrative serves as a springboard for contemplating the connections between geopolitical notions of exoticism and the commercial value attached to them, a theme that resonates deeply in the art world’s constant pursuit of otherness: the global movement of cultural production and its exotification continues to have a profound impact on regions in the Global South and Eastern Europe.

Dawn Chorus presents an immersive installation featuring recorded birdsong from the homelands of the majority of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children residing in Austria within the last two years. These are incidentally also all countries that were members of the Non-Aligned Movement since its inaugural conference in 1961, with Pakistan joining in 1979. Most of these nations, except for Tunisia, also participated at the historic Bandung Conference. The countries in Dawn Chorus include Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Tunisia, and India.

The installation focuses on sound as a place-maker while also drawing a poignant connection between migration, displacement, and the labour undertaken by migrant communities throughout history. Many of these labour experiences are tied to early morning hours spent in cleaning and maintenance roles, highlighting the profound impact of migration on both personal identity and societal structures – including the Western art institutions, where many of its maintenance staff continue to come from developing countries. Here the bird song from all the diverse territories meets within the museum’s garden, forming a new, hypothetical sonic space of co-existence, resuscitating a non-nationalist form of music.

Ultimately the installation also refers to the history of the building itself, which served as a world pavilion at the 1958 Brussels exhibition – the first major global event after World War II. For this exhibition, countries meticulously curated their presentations with great political attention to announce to the world their new ideological direction. This was a pivotal moment when soft power was fully realised via the national architectural and cultural achievements of each nation.

The birds included in the installation are all named after European naturalists, colonial administrators and missionaries who became agents of empires and as such facilitated a global information exchange that often contested territories and their resources. With bird ‘discoveries’ by the Europeans, and the ‘gifting’ of names that followed the newly invented Linnaean taxonomy and the tradition of gifting new (European) common names, local knowledge would be erased and local names annulled. As such, discovery became complicit with the destruction of worlds taking place within the colonial project. The Linnaean taxonomy system with its binomial nomenclature presents one of the last systems of patriarchal control that has not been problematised and rewritten; namely its rules do not allow for the names of organisms to be changed, even when they bear tribute to politically problematic namesakes – including colonisers and slave owners.

Cibic reverses the historical strategies of European ‘re-discovery’ of species – where their newly gifted Latin or common name would be the last to arrive in the process of their re-inscription within the European ‘civilised’ world. The artist reached out to scientific illustrators and altered the standard workflow of their practice – giving them only the Latin and/or common name of the bird to use as the reference for its proposed appearance. Working with namesakes of white European men – the proposed illustrations decode the language of the discipline and insert a decolonial potential of rewriting the history of patriarchal domination.

Against the backdrop of the current global socio-political, climate, and migration crises, the concept of the nation-state is increasingly being scrutinised as a legitimate model for the future. This prompts us to question what constitutes cultural capital within the contemporary condition, how it is shaped, by whom, and for whom.

AFGHANISTAN

The Hume’s Short-toed Lark (Calandrella acutirostris) is named after Allan Octavian Hume, a British ornithologist, colonial administrator, and founder of the Indian National Congress. The illustrator envisions the bird with uniquearchitectural characteristics such as feathers that evoke traditional headdresses of the region. The detail of the bird’s skull bones and of tail feathers recall the architecture of India and the delicate markings on the egg of this species bear a resemblance to a mosaic pattern found on mosques in Afghanistan.

Laura Montserrat (BA Biology, University of São Paulo, Brazil) is one of the founders of the Scientific Illustration Nucleus of the University of São Paulo. She works with the Biosciences Institute, the Oceanographic Institute and the Zoological Museum of the University of São Paulo. 

SYRIA

Hemprich’s Horned Lark (Eremophila bilopha) is named after Friedrich Wilhelm Hemprich, a German naturalist and zoologist who travelled to the Libyan desert in 1820 as part of an expedition led by the Prussian General von Minutoli. He was sponsored by the Berlin Academy and later by the Austrian consul, allowing him to continue his explorations to Syria and Lebanon. The illustrator portrays the bird showcasing effective desert camouflage, along with subtle hints of iridescence in its feathers that might have captured the interest of European explorers.

Sandra Doyle specialised in Scientific Illustration at Middlesex Polytechnic, England and is a member of the Association of Botanical Artists. Her botanical illustrations are included at the RBGE Florilegium and RHS Lindley Library collections and her publications include the BBC Wildlife Magazine. 

TUNISIA

Tristram’s Warbler (Curruca deserticola) is named after Henry Baker Tristram, an English clergyman, ornithologist, and explorer who conducted ornithological research in North Africa and Palestine. A proponent of Darwinism, Tristram sought to reconcile evolution and creation, dedicating his time to both natural history observations and identifying localities referenced in the Old and New Testaments. The illustrator envisions the bird adorned in hues reminiscent of the Sahara sands, blending seamlessly into the rocky terrain and ravines.

Sara Menon is a natural science illustrator based in Italy. She has taught at the Biomedical Visualisation programme, University of Illinois Chicago with prof. J. Daugherty.

INDIA

Jerdon’s Courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus) is a critically endangered bird species named after Thomas C. Jerdon, who described the bird in 1848. Facing threats from palm oil deforestation, it stands as India’s rarest bird and is among the world’s top 50 rare bird species. The illustrator imagines the bird as a small and fascinating creature, with a small appendix near the beak and unique colour patterns that differentiate between immature individuals and adult males and females.

Iñaki Diez Cortaberria graduated in veterinary medicine from the Complutense University of Madrid. He works with the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and has been a professor of scientific illustration in a postgraduate master’s degree at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University of Madrid.

PAKISTAN

Sirkeer Malkoha (Phaenicophaeus leschenaultii) is named after the French botanist Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, known for sending many of the plants and seeds he discovered to the French island of Réunion for cultivation. Among his contributions were two varieties of sugar cane and six varieties of cotton. He was honoured with the Legion of Honour for his work. The illustrator portrays the bird as an estuary-dwelling species, characterised by its small and agile nature, with long distinctive tail feathers that set it apart.

Sarah McNaboe is a Scientific Illustrator based in Honolulu, Hawaii. She worked as an Illustrator for the International Ocean Discovery Program onboard the scientific drilling ship JOIDES Resolution. A member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, she works for their Journal of Natural Science Illustration. 

EGYPT

Bonelli’s Eagle (Aquila fasciata) was named after the Italian ornithologist and collector Franco Andrea Bonelli, who served as a professor of zoology at the University of Turin and assembled one of the largest ornithological collections in Europe. The illustrator envisions Bonelli’s Eagle as a unique species with striking and uncommon white patterning. This distinct feature might have evolved as an adaptation to the intense heat of its environment. The unusual colouration would likely draw the attention of European ornithologists exploring the region, intrigued by its evolutionary significance and rarity.

Stephanie Rozzo earned her Master’s Certificate from California State University Monterey Bay and did her internship with National Geographic Magazine’s Art Department. She also has a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Arizona and has worked in raptor training and care.