Studying birds. by Chris van Dijke

The photograph shows a carefully composed black-and-white image of a space that looks like a combination of a natural history museum, a private collection and a theatrical installation.

At the centre of the frame stands a single person on a raised platform, surrounded by wooden balustrades featuring decorative geometric patterns. The most striking element is that the person’s head has been replaced by the head of a bird with a long beak. This lends the figure a surreal quality: human and bird seem to literally merge into one another.

The space around the figure is completely filled with stuffed animals. Birds, in particular, dominate the scene.

Due to the wide-angle shot, the lines of the balustrades and the shelves converge towards the centre of the image, naturally drawing the viewer’s gaze to the central figure. The symmetrical composition reinforces the sense of order and organisation, whilst the sheer number of animals simultaneously creates an overwhelming impression.

The lighting consists of subtle spotlights that illuminate the shelves evenly. This creates soft contrasts and ensures that virtually every object remains visible. The choice of black and white emphasises shapes, textures and composition rather than the animals’ natural colours.

In terms of content, the photograph invites various interpretations. The person’s bird-like head can be interpreted as a visual identification with the collection or as a reference to the way in which people study and classify nature. Because the human figure itself appears to be partly a bird, the boundary between observer and observed becomes blurred. The image thus strikes a balance between a documentary record of a collection space and an artistic, somewhat alienating representation in which nature, collecting and identity become intertwined.