The public announcement system of five villages in Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand, is broadcasting birdsongs and sounds of local bird species interpreted by human bird imitators. The species include the oriental magpie-robin, the white-rumped shama, the zebra dove, the common iora, the Eurasian tree sparrow, the golden-fronted leafbird, the Eurasian hoopoe, the plaintive cuckoo, the greater coucal, the common tailorbird, the yellow-eyed babbler, the red-whiskered bulbul, and others. The broadcasts of these more-than-human songs takes place twice a day, in morning and late afternoon, on the occasion of Butterflies Frolicking on the Mud: Engendering Sensible Capital, the Thailand Biennale, Korat 2021. The art intervention by artist Olafur Eliasson was made in collaboration with the bird imitators, Ronnakorn Thientongtaworn and Venus Janrew, and the local birds.

Statement by Olafur Eliasson
Birdsong is a small, often overlooked, but ubiquitous element in public space, part of the atmospheric conditions that make up the urban environment. Most of the time it is there just at the edge of our perception. When you hear it, it is incredible, this melodic intervention in the chaos of the city. The fact is, urban space – our parks, sidewalks, streets, and squares – are not primarily designed by urban planners, landscapers, and architects, but are shaped every day by everything that surrounds them. When we move through the city, however, we forget to consider the larger, more-than-human aspects of our environment. 
When a human imitates birdsongs skilfully, they engage with the non-human animals and create a surprising link to the more-than-human world. To reproduce the birdsong well, the imitator must work to understand and empathise with the birds. For me, the song imitators show the potential of sensitising yourself to a non-human element in urban space and acting as an atmospheric amplifier for what is there but not perceived.
My work for the Thai Biennale aims to enrich life in our shared public space in an unspectacular way, by doing something that is incredibly beautiful and subtly surprising. If at times it dances on the verge of human perception, it calls constantly and unambiguously to the avian audience, entering, I hope, into dialogue with the richness of the more-than-human world.