Title: Aviary Todolí Citrus Fundació, 2023
Artist: Carsten Höller (Brussels, 1961)
Materials: Songbirds, bricks, galvanized steel, natural red ochre pigment, and pomegranate tree trunk.
Dimensions: ⌀ 6 m
Architect: Carlos Salazar Arquitectos
Exectued by: Obres Leal S.L.U. Obres Leal S.L.U. · Roberto Sales Estudio Taller S.L. · INOXFER
Funding: Diputació de València
Colection Todolí Citrus Fundació
Donated by the artist
This aviary is a functional sculpture conceived by the artist Carsten Höller specifically for Todolí Citrus Fundació. The work is organically integrated into the surrounding agricultural landscape. Its hemispherical structure, inspired by a citrus fruit, is set among the rows of the orchard and engages directly with the living collection of nearly 500 citrus varieties that make up the Foundation’s citrus collection.
The piece combines a semi-dome of brick, in the Guastavino style, painted on the exterior with red ochre pigment, and a quarter of a geodesic dome made of galvanized steel and metal mesh. This structure allows light and air to enter, as well as the projection of the birds’ song beyond the enclosure. This permeability turns the aviary into an intermediate space between the built and the natural. Inside, a dried pomegranate tree provides multiple perching points for the songbirds that inhabit it, such as the European serin, linnet, European goldfinch, European robin, chaffinch, and European greenfinch—all species native to Valencian citrus landscapes.
The birds housed in the aviary were born in captivity and will be reintroduced into the wild after a period of adaptation. During this time, their song attracts other birds from the surrounding area, actively contributing to the regeneration and repopulation of the local community. The aviary thus becomes an ecological device in continuous operation.
The piece responds to one of the recurring principles in Höller’s artistic practice: division, understood as the coexistence of apparently opposing realities. Shelter and exposure, nature and architecture overlap and coexist in balance.
Carsten Höller
The artist Carsten Höller is internationally known for his immersive and experimental installations, such as the giant slides installed in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. His career is marked by a scientific background: he initially trained as a biologist and earned a PhD in entomology before turning his attention to art. This scientific foundation is one of the pillars of his practice, in which art functions as a space for perceptual and behavioral experimentation.
Höller’s relationship with birds also has a personal dimension and his fascination with birds runs through much of his work. On one of his first visits to the Foundation, the artist was struck by the abundance of songbirds in our orchards, while their population has declined in the surrounding areas.
In the El Bartolí botanical orchard, the headquarters of the Foundation, birds find refuge from predators and from agricultural areas subjected to aggressive treatments. From this experience arose the donation of this aviary: a work that brings together art, science, and ecology, and that naturally aligns with the cultural and environmental mission of Todolí Citrus Fundació.
