Ava Samii

Visual artist Ava Samii's work Unlit Cathedral celebrates our coexistence with birds - not merely as living beings, but as an inseparable and significant part of our own existence.

Inspired by Ottoman birdhouses and using the migratory bird as a symbol of migration, the work explores the interrelationship be-tween the consequences of cli-mate change for both humans and animals. The work explores how we ascribe different meanings to human and animal bodies.

The work focuses on caring for the weary traveller seeking better living conditions, food, and shelter, and on the structures and attitudes that shape our view of those who move across borders - whether they are animals or humans.

The work functions as a kind of "black box": a testimony to an imagined collapse of the ecosystem as we know it. It serves as a record of what was lost and as a reminder of our shared responsibility and interdependence.

Ava Samii is interested in how our shared spaces can be opened through memory, the sentimental, ritual actions, and speculations on alternative worlds. Samii seeks to dissolve the boundaries between fiction, spiritual experience, and embodied reality, challenging the hierarchies that shape how we value and understand these different forms of experience.