The seemingly choreographed movements of flocks of birds are fascinating to watch, groups of them rising and falling and swirling in the sky before swooping down to the ground. These balletic movements, known as murmurations, inspired a stunning art project that’s made of a material you would never expect.
French photographer Alain Delorme mimics the movements of these ‘clouds’ of birds in the sky using thousands of plastic bags, arranged into intricate shapes and configurations. These images are actually digital creations rather than physical sculptures, and they look so much like bird murmurations that you have to look very closely to see what they’re actually made up of.
The artist explains (loosely translated from French) that “this work is at the crossroads of various cultures and visual arts heritage. First film of all, Murmuration appearing as the unlikely fusion of the vision of this bag which spins on an almost hypnotic in American Beauty (1999) and the classic Hitchchock 1963, The Birds.”
Watch a stunning (real) display of bird murmurations below, in the video ‘Bird Ballet’ by Neels Castillon.
A bird ballet from Neels CASTILLON on Vimeo.

