Cutting the space diagonally, an almost invisible net, the kind used to trap birds, is placed between whose threads some of their feathers now remain, questioning who is really trapped in the cage, the one inside or the one contemplating it from the outside.

"There is a fragile boundary between care and confinement, between cover and restraint. The birdcatcher is a nice guy but at the same time a silent device that captures beauty. The weight and the iridescent wind in him are caught in his net. Beauty is freedom made visible. Thus beauty becomes language and the image of an otherwise unreadable idea. That is why it is dangerous, and yet inevitable, to build a sanctuary for beauty. Even if its capture, for the sake of its demonstration, is always an act of violence". (Barbara Krijanovsky - Espace Surplus)

Red de Niebla
Silk and feathers
In-room 350 x 300 x 20 cm 

Five cages
2013
Berlin (DE)
Paper, silver, and silk
© Anna Talens

I found in an antiquarian shop these botanical illustrations of the nineteenth century, they are hand-colored. I decided to build a new book for them. It is a Leporello that folds in zig zag and when it is open on the floor, you can display it like a wall, where u can see inside the plants, like a cloister. It is a closed garden, that paradise where we dream to live in. A place to grow our species and dedicate the time to contemplate, like the monks in the Middle Ages.