Bad News (fly fast)
Inside doors, the available space will never be enough. But therein lies the guarantee of preserving life. These poor birds, taken from their wild state generations ago, have lost all the culture that once allowed them to survive autonomously and in complete freedom. There is no domestication that does not begin with violence. To domesticate is to colonize.
The process is well known: a dominant being, through the use of force or simple deprivation of freedom, subjects another individual, sometimes of the same species, to an agonizing but effective purge of critical sense and self-sufficiency. The dominated being then assumes a merely utilitarian role. And there are many uses: labor force, defense weapon, informal caregiver or, why not, mere aesthetic accessory. The latter appears to be the case with the birds illustrated in this photographic series. The photographer is, simultaneously, an aggressor and a victim of his own ignorance regarding his role as a colonizer of species.
As in all domestications, the birds in question were denied everything: the ability to obtain food in nature, the sense of orientation, the ability to develop emotional bonds with other elements of their species. Only one property was not denied to them: the ability to fly. Without this property, these birds would have no value to their colonizers.
Despite everything, and thanks to their ultimate strength, these birds appear to have not given up on regaining their freedom, even though they do not know – yet – that the same freedom will inevitably lead to their death. Or, at most, a new enclosure. They don't give up and do so proudly and majestically, expertly flying through the rugged corners of the studio. Until the day when, tired of so many deaths in vain, these domesticated birds, brutally colonized, whether by magic or miracle, manage to pierce the dark cloak of ignorance and thus regain the place that has always been rightfully theirs.
Anyone who swears otherwise is not mistaken. It happened, precisely, here a few years ago. All it took was a couple of green parrots to escape from someone's house in the city of Lisbon. They got married, had children, and today there are hundreds, perhaps thousands. In a proud and organized way, they fill the capital's skies with green, shouting shrilly and vengefully throwing seed shells over the blond heads of the little children playing in Jardim da Estrela.
They came from somewhere in a tropical jungle, wild and uncultured. But now they are Lisboners, in their own right. They live without paying rent in the most expensive areas of the capital. They did well and speculation, like interest rates, is not something that bothers them anywhere else.