Vogelfeest (Bird Feast)

A woman in a long-beaked bird mask and a straw-gold cape balances a single egg on her open palm; an empty gilded cage stands beside her, dark wings pinned to the wall. The beak descends from the same carnival and plague-doctor masks that haunt Wiedijk's canals, and the egg is the universal emblem of origin and fragile possibility. The cage is open and empty, which could mean freedom or could mean loss. Caught between a beginning she holds out and a captivity that has ended, she performs a solitary rite for the birds that feels equal parts offering and farewell.