The Screaming Stones of Stokkøya

The Screaming Stones of Stokkøya are a series of breath-activated sculptures which mimic the call of the Common Swift, the world’s most airbourne bird. The sculptures gather and tell a story of local and global migration and its role in sustaining a thriving, resilient ecological and social environment while also prompting us to consider what it means to call a place home.

Stones gathered from the beaches of Stokkøya make up a collection of handheld sculptures. Each housing a repurposed safety whistle adapted to imitate the call of the Common Swift (Apus apus) - a declining migratory bird whose northernmost breeding grounds lie in Norway. Like the swifts, the rocks are stoic travellers subject to the unnerving powers of nature, moved and offered to the land from daily tides and glaciers during the last ice age. 

The handheld sculptures are housed within community meeting points, familiar places for gathering and sharing. When blown in unison by a group, they imitate the sound of a colony of Swifts - ‘a scream’. This act, encouraged by The Swift Conservation Society will call the birds down to explore potential nesting sites.

Hand-crafted boxes accompany the sculptures, built from wood salvaged from local disused structures and installed in the eaves of the community buildings. Providing these bird boxes celebrates making the uninhabitable, habitable and establishes a safe site for these birds to return to annually, and welcome new life to the island. 

During the spring breeding season, community members are encouraged to practise the  new tradition of using the sculptures to call the birds down to nest. We will rehearse the ‘Spring Scream’ as a collective ceremony to mark the conclusion of the residency and as a gesture to the swifts of Stokkøya; offering refuge within the local ecosystem and a farewell to the swifts before they migrate south. This act unites a gesture of both invitation and departure, grounded in the land with reverence to the eternal yet ephemeral forces that preserve our natural world.