Through the use of clay, the artist Marguerite Kahrl has given life to a creative reinterpretation of traditional terracotta vases designed to capture nesting birds. These works, called relational nests, have recently been installed in the village of Torri Superiore in harmony with the high stone walls and have already begun to be inhabited.
The typological nests are decorative, educational, and functional and call attention to the need to provide refuge to migrating species. The modular family of objects provides a haven from predators and harsh conditions. They support bird and bat populations, insect control, and a more vibrant ecosystem. They are also spaces of social caretaking, tending to a new relationship between living things.
The social sculptures involved community collaboration as a restorative gesture pointing to our relationship with each other and the ecosystem surrounding us. By paying attention to something, it becomes part of ourselves.
Map and legend of installation at the Ecovillage.
Portraits
Marguerite Kahrl’s ‘Relational nests,’ recently installed in the village of Torri Superiore, are complemented by a series of portraits where the objects become instruments to consider the surrounding ecology and relationships within it in new or different ways. Portraits include those residents, neighbors, visitors, and volunteers at Torri Superior involved in the project.
