“When I pick up the still warm body of a bird that has fallen after colliding with a glass window or building, I imagine the thousands of kilometers it has flown. And how, in that one moment, having mistaken the reflection in a window for the real sky, another long journey has ended. This all too frequent experience gave birth to my project Seventeen Grams of Longing.” Iris Häussler
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The two fictitious characters created by Häussler for her latest project, “Seven Grams of Longing,” challenge us to think about the powerful and mysterious depths of human connection through shared practices of empathy.
Twin brothers separated at the age of three, lived out their lives on two different continents. Neither would ever know of the other's existence, yet both developed their own fascinations with the appearance, movements, and disappearance of migrating birds. Perhaps each somehow projected their unfulfilled wanderlust onto the birds–watching the changing seasonal skies, studying their anatomy and characteristics, tracking their migration travels, and imagining the freedom of flight. Unsettled by the frightening year-after-year decline of the migrating birds they long held in splendor; the brothers separately struggled to make sense of events that seemed beyond their control. The notes, drawings, and many handcrafted artworks they made, bear witness to their private obsessions, their magical thinking, and their unspoken connectedness.
Many thanks to the Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) and the Toronto Wildlife Center