In the TICKON park there are seven sandstones with carved portraits of birds, provided with the Latin names and some of them additionally with data on observations of the birds in the Tranekær area.
For Jussi Heikkilä, the birds are the focal point of his art because he finds inspiration in the fact that these winged creatures cross borders without worrying about national borders, political borders, economic borders or religious borders.
But for his eight portraits in stone, he set a limit for himself by treating the observations on five levels: the personal, the local, the common, the national and the international. First and foremost, he should have seen the birds himself, and they should have been ringed in Denmark, but they should also have been checked and registered in another country.
Here, Heikkilä notes that in this connection he discovered that it was precisely a Dane, Hans Mortensen from Viborg, who in 1899 took the initiative to organize modern bird marking.
The research phase was therefore about gathering information. Conversations with Tranekær citizens, with amateur ornithologists, with the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen - and Helsinki.
All the stones stand intact in the park.
Artist: Jussi Heikkilä
Year: 1993
Jussi Heikkilä was born in 1952 in Jyvaskylä in Finland. Trained sculptor. Since the 1980s, global bird studies have been the center of Heikkilä's art, which can be experienced in many countries of the world.