Kristin Schnell

In my series "Composition with Bird", I construct staged environments that reflect the artificial world we impose upon animals—and ultimately, upon ourselves. Geometric shapes in vivid colors suggest order, structure, and control, while the presence of a living bird introduces unpredictability, vulnerability, and vitality. These birds navigate spaces that are built, not grown; curated, not evolved. Their flight is both real and metaphorical—a moment of resistance within a constructed system.
What appears digitally rendered is, in fact, entirely physical. Nothing in these images is computer-generated; all objects were built and arranged in real space. This deliberate approach emphasizes the tension between the tactile and the symbolic, between the staged and the spontaneous.
The work questions the illusion of control and the quiet violence of domestication. By confronting the contrast between the bird's organic presence and the synthetic setting, I explore the boundaries between freedom and captivity, nature and artifice, instinct and design. The image becomes a staged metaphor for our own entanglements in environments that may appear orderly but often deny what is truly alive.

Website www.kristin-schnell.de