Conceived as a symbolic and conceptual journey, Sing a Bird continues a research process initiated in France with Correspondances polyphoniques, exploring the figure of the bird as both subject and author. Developed during a residency in Singapore, the exhibition engages with the local territory, its biodiversity, its legal frameworks, and its history — including the tradition of bird-singing contests — to reflect on how birds, and more broadly non-human beings, have been subject to systems of classification, representation, and ownership.
The journey begins with a photograph of a work by Sébastien Gschwind: a nest fitted with a megaphone, inviting us to listen to the birds and carry their voices further. From there, the path leads into the installation, where all voices share the same horizon. Lou Villapadierna’s piece is heard as one bird among many, listened to through headphones in the intimacy of a one-to-one encounter with an author.
The exhibition unfolds as a gradual passage: from the immobilisation of the bird in art history, scientific illustrations, and laws, to gestures of symbolic liberation through fading, erasure, and withdrawal. These acts do not destroy, but release — loosening the bird from the frames and the cages that once held it, and reimagining history and traditions not as a site of preservation, but of flight.
Venue: 39 Keppel Rd, #03-10 Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065
When: 18 - 21 Aug 2025,
By: INSTINC
