Sky Burial

* MOAA Museum is a fictional institution that I created as part of the narrative that contextualizes a series of fossil-like sculptures in development – of which MOAA #14820188 (Three Holled Parrot Nest) is part of.

Sky Burial is an installation formed by two autonomous objects. One of them is a painting made of paint fragments detached from a ruined wall, showing the hazy silhouette of a vulture that rises among the layers of raw material. The headless figure seems to stand in front of a carcass, claiming its purification with its wings widespread, like an open book. In front of this image, lies MOAA #14820188 (Three Holled Parrot Nest) – an artifact dug in the twentieth century that is currently part of the MOAA Museum collection (who generously lent it to this exhibition).* It is speculated that in the past, when it would be upright, like a cathedral pinnacle, it functioned as an artificial nest for birds – now laying as an obsolete breeding device that reminds us of our efforts to control nature. Resembling fossils and ruins, both objects revolve around birds – entities presented at various stages of their own disappearance, at the mercy of similar entropic processes that affect human bodies and civilization. In this way, the installation aims to explore the tension between humans and nature, but also the boundaries between reality and fiction, exploring possibilities around material culture.