Concept image 2009

The Birds
By Myfanwy MacLeod

Southeast False Creek Plaza (Olympic Village)
1 Athletes Way

Vancouver artist Myfanwy MacLeod has always been interested in the ability of art to convey political and historical meaning. The Birds, her work for Southeast False Creek Olympic Plaza, has been shaped by this new community’s focus on sustainability. The work highlights both the lighter and graver sides of what can happen when a non-native species is introduced to an environment, how the beauty of birds can sometimes mask their threat to biodiversity.

“My work for the Olympic Village tries to infuse the ordinary and commonplace sparrow with a touch of the ridiculous and the sublime. The Birds is a pair of sparrows (male and a female) that, through their large scale – they stand 18 feet tall (5.5 metres) – inverts the normal relationship existing between these typically small birds and the human population…

Locating this artwork in an urban plaza not only highlights what has become the ‘natural’ environment of the sparrow, it also reinforces the ‘small’ problem of introducing a foreign species and the subsequent havoc wreaked upon our ecosystems…. The Birds reminds us of our past, but it aspires to challenge the future. It is my hope that the work stimulates understanding that will lead to a greater sense of shared responsibility and caring.”

Myfanwy MacLeod, 2009

Watch for The Birds, which will be installed after the 2010 Winter Games.

Artist Biography

Myfanwy MacLeod is known for her wry sense of humour and her ability to use her sculptures, photographs and installations to analyze, and even satirize, the relationships between individuals and the art world.

MacLeod received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of British Columbia in 1994. A recipient of a Vancouver Institute of Visual Arts (VIVA) Award in 1999, she has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and abroad, and represented Canada at the 1999 Melbourne Biennale. She has also held teaching positions at the University of British Columbia and Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, and at University of Western Ontario in London.

Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show at the Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver in November 2009. MacLeod’s artwork for Southeast False Creek Olympic Plaza marks her first major public commission.

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