Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Three Zebra finches on the electric guitar. Image courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum

ART REVIEW: In Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s sound project, From Here to Ear, 70 zebra finches create sounds as they interact with amplified guitars and cymbals.

BY KAZAD

SALEM, MA – From Here to Ear, an installation created by internationally acclaimed French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, is attracting a lot of birds and people, too. The installation is part of FreePort [No. 007]: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, the newest contemporary art exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM).

The show explores soundscapes and nontraditional forms of music. Located in PEM’s Barton Art Gallery, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot installation consisting of a flock of 70 zebra finches. The artist converts the exhibition space into a spacious aviary in which birds interact with an array of tuned and amplified guitars. The result is continuing melody and spontaneous music.

This music installation fulfills a childhood dream. Boursier-Mougenot has been dreaming of creating this project since he was a child. Whenever he looked out the window and saw Zebra Flinches, “my feeling was that I want to make music from these birds on the wire,” he recalls.  For more than 30 years, he nursed that dream until it eventually came true.  

The artist recalls how he had problems learning to play instruments growing up in a recent interview. Eventually, he was able to learn music. Boursier-Mougenot trained as a musician at the Conservatory for Music in Nice. Subsequently, he worked for the avant-garde Pascal Rambert theatre company as a composer from 1985 to 1994. His work with the theatre company influenced the experimental sensibilities now evident in his art.  

Starting in the early 1990s Boursier-Mougenot started staging sound installations in art galleries through which he further enhanced his experimental acuity and compositions.

Music Everywhere

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot understands that rhythms and vibrations are an integral part of everyday life and must be liberated. He notes: Music is waiting to be revealed everywhere.” This idea of music has guided many of his installations aimed at translating the visual into the auditory.

From Here to Ear helps Boursier-Mougenot achieve a new musical experience. By extending the 20th-century tradition of experimental music in which chance and accidents play a critical role, he is able to foster new sensibilities. He establishes an innovative paradigm for how people perceive and interact with music. Trevor Smith, PEM’s Curator of the Present Tense notes that “This boundary-breaking installation embraces the element of surprise, while asking us to consider the way we perceive, create and interact with music.

Zebra Finches: Care and Feeding

From Here to Ear, is Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s largest finch installation to date, and perhaps the most challenging. Zebra finches are delicate and sensitive. Caring for so many Zebra finches require absolute care.

Zebra finches are the tiniest of their breed. They are originally from Central Australia where they live in large flocks. They can also be found in Indonesia, East Timor, Costa Rica, and Portugal where there are wild flocks. Zebra finches got their name from the zebra-like stripes across their neck, chest, and especially from its black and white barred tail. Although small, Zebra Finches are active and fun birds to watch.  They need a wide space for flight.  Zebra finches are not elaborate songbirds that can also talk. They can only emit quiet chips and pees.

The 70 zebra finches and the specially designed aviary that makeup Boursier-Mougenot’s installation require adequate and special care. For the purpose of keeping the birds safe, the aviary has to be cleaned twice daily and the birds provided with fresh food and water. The birds’ health also needs serious attention. In addition to ensuring that the birds maintain a healthy circadian rhythm, a vet was also on call. Exotic bird specialist Dr. Elizabeth Bradt of All Creatures Veterinary Hospital, checks on the finches’ health weekly.

Finch Installation Gets Birds Singing

Boursier-Mougenot’s installation activates an environment where birds explore their habitat and respond to museum-goers. When the finches alight on guitar strings, they create a constantly changing harmonic environment, a major fascination for museum visitors who cannot stop interacting with the birds. Children, in particular, have become even more engaged with the unpredictable activities of the flinches and the unrehearsed melodic and ambient music they create.

Sourced from a specialty animal casting company, the 70 zebra finches which were raised in captivity by professional breeders, will be returned to their owners at the end of the exhibition.

From Here to Ear, an installation is part of the FreePort exhibition. The innovative project initiated by PEM, has the objective of engendering a cross-disciplinary conversion fundamental to the evolution of a 21st-century museum. To this end, contemporary artists are invited from across the globe to create unique art projects that will ensure a conversation between the museum and its audience. From Here to Ear is one of such projects. Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s installation has not only become a major source of conversation among many museum-goers, but it is also fostering a new understanding of the concept of art museums in the 21^st century.

From Here to Ear

PEM is just one of the destinations for this installation. So far, the project has been to museums and galleries in New York, Milan, and Montreal. In the early days of the project, Boursier-Mougenot had to capture the finches himself and then set them free after their performance. However, times have changed.

Zebra Finches in Performance