Birds near Ukraine’s frontline are weaving nests from fiber-optic cables used in drone warfare, reflecting how the conflict is reshaping the natural environment, researchers say.
“It’s not even interesting bird-wise but history-wise really documenting a certain moment in time. And by documenting the nest we’re also documenting the impact of war on nature in UK”
The one thing that people seem to forget about and leave as the least important thing when fighting against each other for power and land and investing constantly in warfare and new technologies, or, like in Ukraine’s case, trying to defend themselves, is the impact the war has on the world around them and especially on nature. Looking at these nests, there’s something magicvally mesmerising about them and simultaneously so daunting, to think they will need to adjust to these conditions as permanent. Humans would probably go insane or hide or run away, abandon ship, ask AI for help, birds just deal with it, do what’s the best option with what’s available.
The photos of the actual abandoned town houses really touched me, I don’t know what it is, but it’s like a Giant Spiderweb quietly covered the town, calming it down and putting it down for a long nap so that it could wake up when the nightmare is over.
This has made me think of how something can be so beautiful and so tragic at the same time. Why is it that when I look at these images I feel devastated for the people who experienced displacement from these places yet simultaneously I marvel at the glistening spiderwebs as if it was something otherworldly and magical. Is there a way I could talk about this through my art? A lot of very rough sketches and ideas, thinking about birth and what happens when birth results in creating future mass killers and power hungry dicatators who become the rulers of this world. How our complete disrespect and ignorance of the planet and it’s resources will lead us to our own doom and all that will be left will be empty doorways covered in spiderwebs of fiberoptics. How our obsessive use of technology and AI without the concern for the exploitation of natural resources will lead to extreme weather conditions and food scarcity and all we will see in our empty fridges will be images of fruit and veg on ipads.
“Doors to a Lost World” is a unique artistic and historical installation in the Low Beskids, consisting of symbolic wooden doorways standing alone in open fields. They commemorate former Lemko villages, whose inhabitants were forcibly displaced between 1944 and 1947, primarily during Operation Vistula.
The project was created by Lemko artist Natalia Hładyk. The doors lead to no building; instead, they open onto empty space, meadows and forests, symbolising the lost chyże (traditional Lemko houses), Orthodox churches and entire communities that once thrived there. Each doorway bears a plaque recounting the history of the particular village, accompanied by archival photographs and a symbolic message, such as:
“Cross the threshold of a Home that may no longer exist. Consider yourself invited.”