Goldfinch Republic
2005
– 2005. Off- Loop. Metrònom. Barcelona. (Video Festival)
– 2005. VAD. Girona. (Video Festival)
– 2005. Lladres de cossos. Metrònom. Barcelona. (Group exhibition)
– 2006. XVIII Premis Espais a la Crítica d’Art. Edition of 4 pieces with the vídeo inside
-2008. Action Must not be reaction but creation. Fundació Espais d’Art Contemporani. Girona. (One-person exhibition)
Two video-projections in a double screen at right angles. DVD. 4:3. 16’54”
Edition of 2.000 postcards scattered by the floor. Picnic table and chairs, desk elements, metallic fences and cages of birds.
—
Goldfinch Republic is a video which, within the framework of a larger project of the same name, attempts a poetic reading of the phenomenon of silvestrismo: the activity of capturing, collecting, raising and competing in song contests with small wild male songbirds. This video exists as a single channel version as well as a video installation.
Through the use of an apparently documentary approach in four chapters (The Walk of Honor; Meeting point; Sing, Sing God-Damn-it; Geniuses and Figures) the relationships between the practitioners of this activity are shown as are the relationships which exist between the birds (being used for their symbolic attributes) and their owners. The images illustrate questions relating to the identity of a genre, the socialization of leisure and/or the pertinence of a collective whole through the following a common practice. As a visual and conceptual counterpoint, a close-up of a waving flag is shown which could represent the collective of the bird keepers and at the same time allows for a wider reading of a more political nature which resounds from the title of the work. This strategy destabilizes documental canon and offers an ironic reading of a project which approaches a suburban practice with strong symbolic connotations.