In the project Sparrow Oratorium, I reflect on the symbolic role birds occupy within human culture. By reversing familiar narratives — such as the one in which birds defile monuments — or by merging two words (Schwan and Zange) into a new hybrid object (Schwanenzange), I attempt to expose the structure of our perception. Within this structure, birds are assigned elevated meanings that society would like to recognize in itself: the dove of peace, the swan as a symbol of beauty, the seagull of freedom, the raven of war. There are, of course, also prostituting penguins — yet humans have never turned them into a symbolic animal.

The exhibition culminates in the sculpture sardonically titled *Unschuld. It refers to an ancient Chinese sculptural idea: in order to depict a flying bronze horse, it was placed upon a bird. I adopt this principle by placing my protagonist on a bird — a boy on the threshold of adolescence who may be dreaming of flight. Yet the meaning of this flight remains unresolved: rather than suggesting romantic liberation, it evokes unease and ambiguity.