PICA PICA

Human-Animal-Collaboration

FRANKFURT / MAIN (GER) 2005

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While in the Deutsche Börse Residency Program studio, I commissioned a Frankfurt jeweller to make a gold ring on March 21, 2011. The size and quality of the 750 gold ring are based on the production budget of the Deutsche Börse Residency Program. I place the gold ring in the territory of a pair of Frankfurt magpies (lat. pica pica). It is not clear whether a magpie, which, according to Dr Traulich of Frankfurt‘s Environmental Agency, ranks in our part of the world among the most intelligent varieties of songbird, will find the ring and hide it or put it into its nest. Another supposed reason magpies built shiny objects in their nests is that the sunlight they reflect provides warmth for their brood.

With the kind support of Dr Klaus Richarz, the zoologist, behavioural scientist and head of Hessen‘s ornithological centre

The nest of the Frankfurt magpie pair in whose territory the ring was put out.

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The top-selling daily newspaper BILD Frankfurt and the city magazine Journal Frankfurt communicate the invisible project PICA PICA on April 1 of 2010.