Art takes flight at Festival of the Mind

An exciting series of new creative collaborations bringing birds and art under one wing will set up across the city for the upcoming Festival of the Mind this month (20 - 30 September 2012). Animal Magic: The Wisdom of Birds will pair the University of Sheffield's Professor of Zoology Tim Birkhead with Sheffield-based contemporary artist Paul Evans to create a series of giant eight foot Bowerbird nest structures around the city. Once built, local artists will be stationed in the human-sized bowers - which in nature look remarkably like human-built huts adorned with trinkets - in order to transform them into full-scale interactive art pieces. Professor Birkhead will use his knowledge of animal behaviour to instruct the artists on how exactly mimic the behaviour of the Bowerbird to tempt members of the public inside to view the constructions, to be created in Weston Park on Thursday 20 and Friday 21 September in Barkers Pool. Of the project, Professor Birkhead said: "This is a great way to show the public just how amazing nature can be. Not many people know about bowerbirds, and even fewer can believe that birds can build such sophisticated structures. "Science might seem dull on paper, but it really is quite remarkable and this is a great way of getting it out of the textbooks and into people's imaginations." The ambitious series of installations entitled Animal Magic: The Wisdom of Birds will also feature a dawn chorus of Twitter haiku by local poets at the account @Callhaiku, and a flock wallpaper of mutating starlings that will be installed in various locations around the University.