The world began without man, and it will end without him.
-Claude Lévi-Strauss

Anyone whose goal is "something higher" must expect some day to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? ... No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.
-Milan Kundera

When we finally disappear, nature returns. Nature erases our footprints slowly but surely, and quietly but ruthlessly. Human civilization and history we nurture becomes a part of nature gradually, and this transitory moment vanishes into perpetuity. For many of us, death means the beginning of emptiness, but for nature, it means the end of alteration of specific matter and the beginning of another alteration of it. Our will for civilization is vertigo. Do pelicans, who fly along the seashore, feel vertigo?

Where Do Birds Go Off to Die is an installation commissioned by San Francisco Arts Commission with the financial support from the Graue Family Foundation and exhibited at SFAC's window installation space at 155 Grove Street, San Francisco. The site is located right across from SF City Hall.