Fly concert for a cow memorial ~ by Helena Estrela

Helena Estrela's "Fly concert for a cow memorial" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 8, 2025 as one of 24 acts, (curated by Elisa Giuliani) at the occasion of the AEROPONIC ACTS 2025: CHOREIA (convened by Gabriëlle Schleijpen).

Here you will find an introduction by the presenter, video-documentation filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım and a written report by Grant Watson.The report includes a summary of the spoken, improvised comments by esteemed guest respondents Barby Asante, Sandi Hilal, and Zairong Xiang.

Fly concert for a cow memorial

Helena's question: Are you an artist, a performer, a fly or moo?

Helena's intro:

This presentation is happening somewhere else. There was once a story about a cow, whispered to me by a fly. That story is now being told to a crowd of artists, by another artist. Sometimes art is just a name for completely different things. Sometimes art is not for the artists. The story of the cow drags along an instrument that can be played by touch. We might play it together, but in the end, this presentation is happening somewhere else.

Grant's report: 

The artist introduces the piece before we enter the space. She says that it is strange to make a work just for other artists, so she has arranged a live link to a herd of cows on a mountainside in Portugal, where a musician is also playing a concert for them. Sounds from this installation are being live streamed across the mountain as an offering to the cows. The work is installed in large light room upstairs. The main element is a structure in the middle of the room, made from curtains of linked plastic strips with cow bells suspended at the end of long strips so that when they are moved they jangle like a windchime. These curtains form a small enclosure, inside of which an open mic is positioned at floor level. Finding their way to the structure and the mic, the audience kneel down and take it in turn to speak to the cows, and they manipulate the plastic curtain to activate the bells. A group of people enter and make a mooing sound, tea is served, and biscuits are passed around along with a fanzine which contains a story about cows. Even before the performance is over the artist receives a message to say that the cows have been licking each other which indicates they have enjoyed it.

Barby Asante recalls how a friend of hers doing a performative walk came across a herd of cows and realized that cows can be a threat, and she worries about the artist’s friend up on the mountain. She asks about the background to the work, and how the artist came to make it. She is thinking about communities that are develop through cows. Considering this context she says it took her a moment to realise that the people in the installation were not listening to the cows but that the cows were listening to the people. She wonders what it means to make a work for cows and how this effects the composition of the work. Thinking back to form, she says she enjoyed the work but asks where the artist wants to take it next. There are lots of elements and it’s not clear how they come together but they do start to tell a story.

Zairong Xiang says: up to now we have mostly been looking at projects which have to do with meaning making. This is an example of where that doesn't matter. This anthropocentric world makes it impossible for us to hear other possibilities. Now since the work is turning the tables completely, he was left wondering - where are the hens? Because the cookies are made from a lot of eggs. He wishes there had been a story about hens as well. That is the natural development when you turn the tables. He says he would like to share a story about sheep. He was in Saint Louis in Senegal in a fisherman’s village, where the houses are built in close vicinity to each other, and this is intensified by the kids playing and by sheep. He asked a fisherman why the sheep, and the fisherman explained that while this is one of the richest villages, people don’t believe in banks. So they turn to sheep. In terms of the story in the zine, which is beautifully done, he hopes that in future the artist will just tell the story and not explain it.  

Sandi Hilal is reminded of a film ‘The Wanted 18’ by the Palestinian director Amer Shomali, which shows Israeli soldiers running behind eighteen cows in a small town. During the intifada people had decided to buy eighteen cows, then there was the Israeli military curfew of forty days, and the whole thing was to hide those cows from the soldiers. She likes the way the artist says ‘seventeen cows’ so the story in the zine is already very real and specific. What she would encourage is that the artist sharpen this story even further.