Unite art and nature with hidden bird shelters and facilitate reflection, the key to the “Para Martín” exhibition

Part of the exhibition can be seen at ESDIR, but, as the artist admits, the important thing is to walk the streets and find them

LOGROÑO, September 16 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The ESDIR exhibition hall hosts – during the months of September and October – the project “Para Martín” of the young artist Celia Martínez (Logroño, 1997), awarded work at the XXXVII Young Art Show in La Rioja within the program of professionalization of young artists from La Rioja and the promotion of contemporary artistic practices.

“Para Martín” was born from the idea of ​​installing nests in rural areas and managed to develop to roads unimaginable at the beginning. The result of this process is now presented in an independent exhibition and shows the idea of ​​its author; a project that seeks to build bird sanctuaries. Its name is, on the one hand, a reference to the kingfisher bird, and on the other, an allusion to the artist’s will to surrender the created nests to nature and allow them to integrate into it.

Martinez’s original idea was to install the nests in rural areas. He later decided to move the locations to the city where they interfered more with the human species.

Thus, the project works around seven species of birds that can be found in urban ecosystems: tern, swallow, blue tit, wagtail, great tit and common greenfinch.

Each nest serves one or more species. Sometimes the features of the same shelter are adapted to the needs of more than one bird, depending on its shape and size, its location and in particular the dimensions of the entrance opening, which provides protection against predatory bird species. size.

ART, NATURE AND MAN

Although it focuses on certain species, “Para Martín” is a project that recognizes the possibility of other birds coming to inhabit the sanctuaries. A principle that reinforces Martinez’s will to restore the balance of the relationship between art, nature and man. The fact that the nests, once in place, are integrated into the ecosystem and respond only to nature itself allows nature to be present.

An auspicious occasion to confront the artist, the artistic project itself and society, to claim, in its own right, its presence and place in the city.

Throughout, Celia Martínez has worked with a forestry technician specializing in birds to ensure the feasibility of decisions regarding the production and final location of the shelters.

As the artist explains, they are created from ceramics and wood, using molds to shape them. And that is that the environmental impact of clays and natural boiled mud is minimal. Also, since it is a material that birds often use to build their nests, it is easier for them to appropriate it.

Celia Martinez draws on references in art history such as John Ruskin and William Morris, forerunners of the Arts and Crafts movement, which claimed the union and balance between art, production and craft. We also find allusions to reproducibility, mass production, or the machine-related copy, key concepts in the thought of the iconic Walter Benjamin.

PROFESSIONALIZATION PROJECT

The General Director of Youth, Paco Rivero, recalled that this is the first project to professionalize the Young Arts Show in La Rioja in 2021, the show within the awards has two categories; some fixed prizes and other specific prizes for young people from La Rioja – as is the case of Celia – with 3,000 euros to reproduce “the idea and the dream that they present to us”.

During this professionalization process, they are accompanied by a member of the jury, in this case Monika Yoldi (project manager), who, together with the artist, helps make the project a reality.

As Celia Martínez pointed out, with this work she wants to provoke reflection “if the environment continues to be destroyed, everything will disappear”. It also “tries to make people aware and try to change this way of looking, of seeing…that they walk, that they go out on the streets, that they see the animals, the nests…”.

All this through “a very personal process” because, as he pointed out, “I define myself as a city dweller, but I’ve always found a disconnect in traveling to nature and trying to give back to it all that it has given me. There I heard sounds, saw animals that I didn’t even know about because I just wasn’t interested… and this process is very important, if with this exhibition I get other people to participate in it, it would be great.”

Regarding the location of the nests, he said: “The intention is to keep them hidden. I won’t say where they are, because the important thing is not to find the piece, but rather for people to see other things. Now there are four nests, one of them is already occupied, but I still have twenty more to install.’

Finally, Yoldi appreciated the work of the young artist, which is “very solid work”. He also emphasized “that young people are very aware of the environment and the protection of the ecosystem.”

“Contemporary art that talks about the problems and how to preserve nature. In short, a thought-provoking piece,” he concluded.