About The Birds

Curated by Bob Bicknell-Knight / isthisit?
Artists: Anastasiia Krapivina, Kroplya, Denis Kudrjasov, Olev Kuma, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Rosa- Maria Nuutinen, Kertu Rannula, Nora Schmelter, Aidan Timmer and Edvard Vellevoog
11 th – 22 nd June
Opening 10 th June, 6-9pm
Uus Rada gallery, Raja tn 11a, 12616 Tallinn, Estonia

The curatorial platform isthisit? is excited to present About The Birds, an exhibition at Uus Rada that explores house sparrows, their ubiquity and resilience, alongside their status as invasive pests. Stemming from an interest in how pervasive and common this species of bird has become, and how they have spread all over the world, About The Birds is an exhibition exploring ideas surrounding the home, transformation and change.
Each artist in the exhibition was provided with a custom-built wooden bird house, made specifically for house sparrows. They were given free reign with what to do with the structure, enabling the artists to produce a new work of art that echoes their ongoing practice whilst asking them to reflect on their own relationship to this common bird.

The exhibition at Uus Rada is the first piece of a three-part curatorial project. Once the exhibition ends the bird houses will be installed in and around Tallinn on different trees and buildings, for the public to visit and discover. The different locations will be accessed via a map published on the isthisit? website. Once installed, the works will be left to live outside in the natural environment, decaying and transforming with time.

The final part of the project will be a book published in late 2025, featuring documentation of the different works, both at Uus Rada and in their locations around the city, as well as a series of short texts reflecting on the project and its themes.
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Bob Bicknell-Knight (b. 1996, Ipswich, UK) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator currently based in Tallinn, Estonia, working with digital media producing films, paintings, sculptures and installations. His practice explores ideas surrounding time, control and degradation, with a particular interest in the underlying mechanics of video game worlds and power structures
that proliferate online and in new forms of technology. Bicknell-Knight is influenced and inspired by our pre-apocalyptic present, climate collapse, virtual worlds and 24/7 hyper- capitalism.

Bicknell-Knight is also the founder and director of isthisit?, a platform for art that’s specialised mainly in digital art since its creation in May 2016, and has worked with hundreds of artists since its inception. Through the platform he curates online and offline exhibitions, hosts an infrequent residency programme and has designed and edited a series of books, focusing on several broad themes from contemporary modes of surveillance to fake news and video game culture.

Poster Font: MAURIZIO by Jaan Pavliuk (2020)