Artwork Data
Title
De Vogelclub
Artist
Year
2005-2008
Material
Keramiek
Dimensions
H. 40 cm
Partial collection
Artwork Location
Address
Diverse woonhuizen verspreid over Ypenburg, Den Haag
City district
Leidschenveen-Ypenburg
GPS data
52.039988282222, 4.3707808413086 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
How do you give inspiration to a completely new neighborhood? In response to that question, Ingrid Mol wrote a story, as she often does in her art practice. Inspired by the bird names of the streets in the first neighborhood built in Ypenburg, that story is about a bird club. Mol fantasizes how residents meet in a special club. Entirely voluntarily, they take on the role of representing a specific species of bird. To this end, they wear costumes with bird heads and sing together in a choir.
In addition to the bylaws, the book chronicled stories about the goings-on in the canteen on a club night, how to grow into your bird role and the competition in which the club participates as a bird choir. Each member is also beautifully portrayed by Mol and provided with a behavioral description. The membership number is not missing either. The club has as many as 36 different species of birds. These range from song thrushes, starlings and gulls to the common jay, collar parakeets and birds of prey.
As with her other art projects, Mol did not stop at a book of illustrations alone with The Bird Club. In collaboration with the Hague-based ceramics workshop Struktuur 68, she has also produced the bird heads in a larger format. A number of each of the birds were made in an edition. Altogether, during the first and second swarm of the Kunst aan Huis project, more than ninety bird heads landed on houses throughout Ypenburg. So while cycling or walking through the neighborhood, you can spot such a bird from the club with great regularity. You immediately wonder what it would sound like if they all sang together.