The Birds Who Stayed

Sculpture series - Cut and welded steel, 1 x 1.5m. Installation on the roof of Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U) Berlin, Germany (2017).

Alexander Augustus' sculptures from The Bite Back Movement series "The Birds Who Stayed & The Birds Who Left."

I sat at the window of a former West German train station and  pondered the severity of the Brexit negotiations. I watched as yet another hatchling sparrow plummeted to its death from the roof above, failing to flap over the far wall. 

As a former West German train station, the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik building hosted Soviet East Germans working to load and offload goods across the border. These workers never took the opportunity to escape across the boundary into West Germany, despite the declining conditions in the East. ZK/U Berlin commissioned my studio to make a permanent installation on this theme. My sculpture series is a monument to those who are unable to cross borders. Two steel birds illustrated from the sparrows I tried to save.

Their evening shadows extend beyond Berlin wall which they will never cross.