Kader Attia's Flying rats

"Kader Attia presents, here, an installation whose title is taken from the English expression flying rats, which refers to pigeons: the visitors find themselves face to face with a birdcage containing 150 pigeons and 45 children made from moose mixed with compacted bird grain. In what seems to be a recreation courtyard, girls and boys play with marbles or squabble while the pigeons are slowly devouring them. Throughout the exhibition, it will be the pigeons that appropriate the space provoking the evolution of the piece. With all the utilisation precautions connected with a volatile security and vigorous hygiene rules, the birdcage will therefore become a natural habitat, a microcosm in which the pigeons will make there nest and will devour the children. Beyond the cruelty of the scene, Kader Attia wishes to remind us that childhood is probably the period in the life that we see further and further behind us but still think of very nostalgically".

Illus. : Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris. Photo : Blaise Adilon.
High def photography here, and other views of the installation here and here.