In Asylum of the Birds, created between 2003 and 2013, Roger Ballen delves deeply into psychological territories, presenting an intricate visual dialogue between humans, animals—especially birds—and crafted installations, all set against the backdrop of a profoundly theatrical environment.
Building on the visual language developed in Boarding House, Asylum of the Birds takes a more defined conceptual turn, introducing an explicit investigation into the dual nature of the term "asylum"—as both a place of refuge and a site of madness. Like its predecessor, the series is set within a real yet enigmatic building near Johannesburg that served as a creative stage. The house, inhabited by marginalized individuals, transients, and a host of uncaged animals, becomes a metaphorical space where psychological extremes—chaos and refuge—collide and intertwine.
Ballen’s artistic vision in Asylum of the Birds intensifies the interplay between reality and fantasy. The boundary between the tangible and the imagined becomes more porous, with birds now acting as indispensable figures in every frame—both literal inhabitants and archetypal symbols that evoke a tension between freedom and entrapment.
Through an assemblage of drawings, found materials, sculptural forms, and collage, the photographs construct layered interior worlds within the frame. Human figures, largely obscured or fragmented, interact in disturbing coexistence with the omnipresent birds and other animals, contributing to the project's surreal aesthetic.
Published as a monograph (2014) and paired with the short film Roger Ballen’s Asylum of the Birds (2014), the series was presented in major museum exhibitions at Musée Nicéphore Niépce and MACRO, Rome (2014–15), and later folded into retrospectives such as Theatre of the Mind (Sydney, 2016) and Museum Tinguely’s Call of the Void (Basel, 2023).
