“Kanari 1“ and “Kanari 2“ are a yellow and a red canary, “Hansi“ and “Bubi“ are a blue and a green budgerigar. All birds have been “transformed“ by two former Sovjet institutes into diamonds. Bird by bird the cadaver have been firstly converted into carbon and then into absolute pure graphite. In the second institute this graphite was used to produce synthetic diamonds, one of each bird. The diamonds stayed raw as grown and unpolished. The mass of the diamonds varies according to the birds and is for the canaries 0.25 ct, for the budgerigars 0.5 ct, the “Crow“ has 1.2 ct and the “Soup hen“ has 2 ct.
The research – carried out on site or from the studio in Frankfurt – turned out to be difficult and adventureous for the artist. An official cooperation was impossible. Parallel to his research Hendricks, overcoming strong reservations of domestic bird breeders had obtained dead birds in the desired colors, had plucked and preserved them.The naked corpses were then one by one brought to the institutes in the East through kind of a courier system of cross-border commuters. Jochem Hendricks was partially on location during the work process, but also relied on partners who took care of the realisation and also protected him during his stays. Precaution is advisable in those countries.