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THE BIRDS

2013

Korenlei, Ghent, Belgium

A building on the Korenlei in Ghent inspired Piet Van to create a work on the theme of birds, with sound. He painted large canvases, visible through the large windows, with sounds audible from the outside of the building. 

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The concept for his sculptures arose from the idea to make tapestries for a monastery with a beautiful large space with large windows. Here he wanted to make four carpets in different themes on the floor and on the wall. 

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The first idea was a tapestry from 'The birds'. By depicting a hundred stuffed birds trying to fly away from the black pitch.The bird that would stick out the most was the swan of eight feet. Each bird or section would have a sensor containing the sound of Albert Hitchcock's movie 'The Birds'. So if someone walked by, the sound would come along. 

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A person walking through the art work would not experience it that way, but for a remote spectator, the sound would, as it were, go along. A second tapestry was a fish carpet, a ton of fish scattered on real crushed ice. His search to keep real fish sustainable eventually led him to his patented invention to tan fish leather. 

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Due to circumstances, the project could not continue. The pencil drawings and sculptures can be seen as study work in preparation for a possible future project.

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