Sigil Collective—Birdsong in Jawlan

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The video shows the ‘displaced’ intervention in the Syrian Jawlan, part of Birdsong: a project commissioned by the XXII Triennale di Milano, Broken Nature. Near the village of Mas’ade the collective Sigil, in collaboration with a local NGO, have co-produced an orchard comprised of 40 apple trees, a scarecrow, and a birdhouse. The birdhouse is a 1:25 model of the helical staircase of Giovanni Muzio, the installation’s space in Triennale.

Erecting the Birdhouse in the Mas’ade Apple Orchard.

Sigil Collective
Sigil is an Arab collective founded by Khaled Malas, Salim Al-Kadi, Alfred Tarazi, and Jana Traboulsi based in Beirut and New York City. Sigil seeks to explore the marvelous and terrifying metamorphoses of the Arab landscape that is the stake and site of historical and contemporary struggles. Since 2014, they have been engaged in building architectures of resistance in Syria. Their work has been published and exhibited internationally.

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Broken Nature
 
The XXII Triennale di Milano, Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival, highlights the concept of restorative design and studies the state of the threads that connect humans to their natural environments––some frayed, others altogether severed. In exploring architecture and design objects and concepts at all scales and in all materials, Broken Nature celebrates design’s ability to offer powerful insight into the key issues of our age, moving beyond pious deference and inconclusive anxiety. By turning its attention to human existence and persistence, the XXII Triennale will promote the importance of creative practices in surveying our species’ bonds with the complex systems in the world, and designing reparations when necessary, through objects, concepts, and new systems. Even to those who believe that the human species is inevitably going to become extinct at some point in the (near? far?) future, design presents the means to plan a more elegant ending. It can ensure that the next dominant species will remember us with a modicum of respect: as dignified and caring, if not intelligent, beings.
 
Broken Nature is composed of a thematic exhibition and a number of international participations solicited through official channels. It will run from March 1 to September 1, 2019.

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