Project Overview

Birding the Future is an interdisciplinary artwork that explores current extinction rates by specifically focusing on the warning abilities of birds as bioindicators of environmental change. The installation invites visitors to listen to endangered and extinct bird calls and to view visionary avian landscapes through stereographs, sculpture, and video. This ongoing project explores how declining bird populations signal profound changes over our entire planet. 

To date there are seven region-specific iterations of the project: Queensland Australia, the Arabian Peninsula, Norway, Mid-Atlantic USA, RheinMain Germany, Barrow Valley Ireland, and Sky Islands AZ (currently in progress). The project also includes two unique series — the Names Series focuses on bird-naming practices and conventions, also including calls of birds with onomatopoeic names and a series focused on laboratory birds . The work has been exhibited as site-specific installations both in traditional gallery spaces as well as outdoors in public settings. By focusing on local ecosystems in a number of regions across the world, this ongoing project combines notions of site-specificity to highlight regional trends while simultaneously mapping global commonalities.

Learn more here

Queensland, Australia 

First installed at the 2013 Balance Unbalance International Conference in Noosa, Queensland.

Arabian Peninsula 

First installed at the 2014 International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in Al-Fahidi Historical District in Dubai. Special thanks to Dr. Jacky Judas, Emirates Wildlife Society.

Norway

Funded by Arts Council Norway and first installed at Futurescapes Symposium in Trondheim, Norway in 2016.

Mid Atlantic USA

First installed at Arts in Foggy Bottom in Washington D.C in 2016.

Lab Series

In collaboration with Dr. Sylvia Torti. Text adapted from her novel, Cages and first installed at the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake City in 2017. Special thanks to Dr. Franz Goller. 

RheinMain Germany

Commissioned for RAY 2018 by the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Germany. Special thanks to Celina Lunsford, Artistic Director and Sabine Seitz, Managing Director.