Flight Path (Painted birds); Trayectoria (Pájaros pintados)

Fly, fly high wounded dove
Fly, fly if you want to change your life
Fly before the night will cover your days
Dove of mine, my wounded dove

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Vuela, vuela bien alto paloma herida
Vuela, vuela si quieres cambiar de vida
Vuela antes que la noche cubra tus días
Paloma mía, paloma herida

The six Painted Birds are digital images by Mariano Akerman. Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. Visual source of inspiration: S. Bak, “Fugue,” 1972 (Bak: Paintings of the Last Decade, New York: Aberbach Fine Art, 1978, p. 86). Literary source of inspiration: Horacio Guaraní, “La villerita,” chamamé. Translation into the English language by Akermariano.

You may consider catching a bird and keeping it away from its covey. Add someone hurrying up to paint the recently captured bird, so to covering its feathers entirely with paint of many colors. Afterwards, the painted bird is set free. It instinctively flies towards the covey of its kin, aiming to regain its place amid the other members of the group. But, as the painted bird rejoins the covey, none of the unpainted birds recognizes the painted one. The presence of this “alien” turns the unpainted birds pretty hostile. Yet, the painted bird doesn’t understand much about what has happened to it. The closer the painted bird gets to the unpainted ones, the rougher their response. In the end, the unpainted birds attack the painted one, wounding it badly. All locals find great delight in watching the painted bird falling from the sky.

Fly, fly high wounded dove
Fly, fly if you want to change your life
Fly before the night will cover your days
Dove of mine, my wounded dove

References. The six birds presented as Trajectory are digital images by Mariano Akerman → visual source of inspiration: Samuel Bak, Fugue, 1972 (Bak: Paintings of the Last Decade, New York: Aberbach Fine Art, 1978, p. 86). The first paragraph in this post has its literary source of inspiration in Jerzy Kosiński, The Painted Bird, 1965; the second one in Horacio Guaraní, “La villerita,” chamamé: « Vuela, vuela bien alto paloma herida / Vuela, vuela si quieres cambiar de vida / Vuela antes que la noche cubra tus días / Paloma mía, paloma herida » (English translation by Mariano Akerman). In The Painted Bird, there is a professional bird catcher. When he is upset or bored, he takes one of the birds he has captured and paints it in several colors. Then he watches the bird flying through the air in search of a flock of its kin. When it comes upon the otherbirds, they see it as an intruder and wound the bird until it dies, falling from the sky. For me, the professional bird catcher is a symbol of so-called humanity and its inherent cruelty.