O you virtuous owle,
The wise Minerva's only fowle.
Sir Philip Sidney
The owl, a symbol of wisdom and erudition, is featured as a bird (a Barred Owl) and as a butterfly in a drawing to be installed inside a wall cabinet / library. It will be obscured in its final state by books attached to the drawing. There will be five books "written" by different species of birds and five books written by different species of insects. The text will, indeed, be in their own languages.
Viewers will be able to open the doors of the cabinet and remove the books for reading. The concept is based on "literatura de cordel," a tradition in northeastern Brazil where books of poetry, songs and stories are hung on strings for sale in marketplaces and at festivals. These books, with original woodcut covers, are affordable and popular. They follow a long tradition of chapbook and pamphlet printing in the 18th and 19th centuries.
