Murmurations

• Prize
  Silver in Fine Art/Other
• Jury Top 5 Selection

  Goh Kim Hui

• Photographer
  Johannes Bosgra
• Agency / Studio
  Johannes Bosgra Photography
• Technical Info
  Fuji Gfx100 Medium Format Camera, 100-200mm, 1/400 Sec. At F 5.6, Iso 400
• Photo Date
  4 march 2020

Starling murmurations form abstract landscapes in the sky in a sublime musical rhythm. Tens of thousands of starlings fly in swooping, intricately coordinated patterns. This ballet is executed as a perfect choreography, the birds manage uncertainty while also maintaining consensus. Starlings accomplish this by paying attention to a fixed number of their neighbors in the flock, regardless of flock density — seven, to be exact. In following this role of seven, the birds are part of a dynamic system in which the parts combine to make a whole with emergent properties — and a murmuration results.

Johannes Bosgra (b. 1979, NL) has travelled to the most desolate places on earth from a young age to create his contemplative work, from Antarctica to Alaska. He is selected as GUP New Dutch Photography Talent 2020. Bosgra explores the links between classical music and visual art. He has collaborated with composers and musicians such as Philip Glass, Maarten van Veen, Ralph van Raat and Feico Deutekom to create gesamtkunstwerke of visual art and classical music. Bosgras work has been exhibited internationally in a.o. Miami, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.