Murmurations: For the Love of Birds

Over the past 50 years, three billion birds–almost a third of the avian population–have disappeared from North America, caused primarily by habitat loss and degradation.

With an introduction that briefly tells the story of birding, the urgent need to save birds, and the importance of conservation for our society as a whole, Murmurations: For the Love of Birds includes the work of three contemporary visual artists who explore the topic through various media.

Carmen Ostermann’s ceramic work illustrates the avian crisis in elegant alabaster-colored sculptures. In her work, she depicts endangered species with organic elements encroaching on their bodies—a reference to ecological succession, the process of new life filling spaces after habitat destruction. Alice Hargrave creates ethereal, abstract-patterned “portraits” using sound files to render wave patterns of actual bird calls. Carolyn Monastra’s ongoing series, “Divergence of Birds,” the artist photographs paper cutouts of climate-threatened birds within their current habitats—photos within photos—illustrating a present where actual birds are disappearing and a future in which only image facsimiles remain.