How a train station in Ebensee became a bird’s nest

Anyone waiting for the train in Ebensee has to ask themselves difficult questions. At least from Thursday to Monday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. “What do I really need?” or “What is enough?” the childish voices from the loudspeakers want to know. A drink in the “Gasthaus zum flatternden Aufbruch”, which opened on June 22 at the Landungsplatz stop, will not help you think about it.

Because there is only one thing there: birds. Big, small, colorful, gray, fat, thin, stuffed and those that are not necessarily immediately recognizable as birds. FFP2 masks suddenly give you wings or an empty bottle becomes a more or less elegant body. “Everything is possible, nothing is necessary” is the motto. Outlaws, in other words.

That’s the name of the Capital of Culture project that has been turning hundreds of children, both big and small, into artists for more than two weeks. The idea came from Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger, and was born out of the tradition of bird-catching. The interactive exhibition was designed by Julia Stoff and Katharina Lackner, specifically for children. “They are the experts in imagination,” says Lackner, who supports the little artists but deliberately refrains from giving instructions or assessments. “We want to convey self-determination, because that is very rare anyway. The children should be happy with their work. No matter what the end result is,” she says.

Anything can become a bird

And with the large selection of materials, anything can come out of it. “But we always tell them to take what they need and not what they want,” says Lackner. A cotton ball becomes a sparrow, a plastic bottle becomes a pterosaur. The children work for up to an hour and a half on one figure, which then sits in the nest they have made with hundreds of others. And there are also hidden messages among all the birds. “Let the birds fly freely,” one little artist wrote on a piece of paper, “no small cages,” another wrote.

That was a coincidence, but somehow it still fits into the concept. “Free from birds” is a double meaning. “We are of course also concerned about biodiversity. Because if we as a society carry on like this, the earth will soon be free of birds,” says Lackner. Nobody knows what the train station will look like by the end of the installation on September 8th. In any case, there is still enough space. “Those who come to us don’t necessarily have to do any crafting. They can just watch. Although we have learned from experience that we adults sometimes have to slow down so that the children have enough space to implement their ideas,” says Lackner.

On September 13th and 14th, you will have the opportunity to collect the birds you have made. Those that have been borrowed (such as a swan from Linz, the Capital of Culture in 2009) will also be returned to their owners. Until then, however, the birds are free.