Under the clattering rumble of the J Train, as it passes above from Manhattan into Brooklyn, this Ruby Crowned Kinglet hangs onto a small branch. An overcaffeinated and twitchy bird of very diminutive size, its birdsong is non-the-less one of the loudest – and quite musical. It looks like Mantra has chosen a perfect New York bird for this wall in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

In collaboration with the Audubon Society and Flora Fauna Funga (FEE), the French naturist, muralist, and former graffiti writer brought this natural scene into a boisterous babble of lateral glass and steel hubris. An artists’ neighborhood at the turn of the century, most of those colorful characters have been chased out by high rents, higher anxiety, and the startling, stultifying cultural homogeneity found in any suburb. It’s nice to see a little color back here.

“I had heard about this Audoban project on the street here,” Mantra explains, “and Martha said, ‘Why don’t you take the subway up to Harlem to see the new walls that feature birds and introduce yourself to the organizers.” He is referring to photographer and friend Martha Cooper whose cat Melia he once painted on a wall in Helsingborg, Sweden.

In the end, it was the Audobon Society in Paris who gave him the first opportunity, and now he is in the sister city of New York to paint this one for them. “We realized that it would be a good idea to have a mural in Paris and another one in New York City anyway,” he says.

Looking for a metaphor he says, “We are not even building a bridge but maybe as birds we migrated from Paris to New York.” New York has of course a public art connection with France at least since the 1880s when the Statue of Liberty opened – designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi , with its metal framework built by Gustave Eiffel.

“So basically,” Mantra says, “ I decided to design this mural so we could appreciate this bird above us. The ruby-crowned kinglet arrived and landed on the branch. Maybe he is as curious as we are.”

And what about the new mushrooms that have seeming popped up here overnight?

“There is a fungi foundation that is linked and is sort of a parallel foundation that is also a partner for this project,” he says. “From what I understand, there is a struggle to break into the scientific fields and establish a third order. It would be flora, fauna, and fungi.”

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