“Our piece is quite literally a microphone for a family of birds, a misplaced measure often overlooked. We propose a small incision into the earth, placing the user inside of the listening device, a gramophone of sorts, precisely directed at a vernacular birdhouse installed at the top of the trees. An object of mystery, the sculpture imagines a paradigm shift, representing a metamorphosis from a small caged birdhouse to a larger than life gramophone, an echo chamber for nature. We hope that our sculpture houses not only curious users of the human form, but also empowers nature, including the birds and plants. Too often, art is placed at the eye level, superseding the surroundings. In this case, the art is a gentle filter, exposing and projecting the surroundings, louder than before. The park is the true masterpiece. Pause, Listen.”

Authors: Signe Ferguson & Thanasis Ikonomou
500 x 320 x 900 cm
Steel
Fontelo Woods / 40.658812, -7.899760

Signe/Thanasis is a partnership developed to spark conversations between people, culture and the world we live in. Initiated in 2018, the collaboration was formed to combine our backgrounds in order to question conventional design norms.

Signe Ferguson
Signe is an artist and architect from New York. She is currently interested in bio-materials, and future cycling structures, and considering how we can borrow the materials for our future structures. Her previous projects include the scale of memorials, airports, performance pieces, and land art, including the Changi Jewel Airport, the Memorial for Victims of Gun Violence, and installation of the Water Project by Oscar Tuazon. She likes to consider how space can quiet us, to begin to see, hear, and feel more. She is the founder of The Annex, a collective based out of Seattle, as well as an online web show called “Drunk Design History”. Additionally she is currently developing a website with two students from the Harvard GSD called “vers_ctrl”, which highlights the unfinished state of work, and runs two in person series based out of NYC: Loading Sessions,and Urban Dinners. She is currently a Master’s candidate at Yale School of Architecture and received her Bachelors from Brown University and developing an experimental practice based around anti disciplinary thinking.

Thanasis Ikonomou
Thanasis is a Greek-Canadian Architect, Artist and Photographer based in Athens, Greece. His designs encourage movement between spaces, discoveries along the way and relationships amongst landscape and built environment. His multi-disciplinary training intersects diversity and celebrates local cultural identities within the realm of architecture, art and urbanism. He has held many design roles for architecture firms including OMA Rotterdam, Studio MAKS, Architecture Research Office NYC and Olson Kundig Seattle. Thanasis’academic involvement includes taking on the role of international contact for the EASA European young architecture platform, tutor for the 2020 EASA Apathy with the proposed workshop “Behind the Curtain”, teachings in representation at Dalhousie University while also taking part in guest reviews for Cornish College of the Arts, University of Washington and Washington State University. He has a Masters Degree in Architecture from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of British Columbia. He was previously training as a chef and Thanasis’ current focus is in developing public spaces for small underrepresented communities in remote areas of Greece.

www.thanasis.ca

Fontelo Woods
Viseu, Portugal
40.658812, -7.899760