The Vulture and the Hummingbird (in progress)

“Yet it seems that around the world, in each culture, only a few birds are culturally recognized as gifted with the ability to mediate between life and death...In the Americas, two birds esteemed for this power to move back and forth between life and death are hummingbirds and vultures.” (N. Sault)

Vultures and hummingbirds often elicit immediate and opposite associations; yet each play a crucial ecological role, with vultures considered a keystone species that purify our environments and hummingbirds serving as vital pollinators.

Expanding on our foundational work, Birding the Future is creating a new body of work “The Vulture and the Hummingbird,” which will be an immersive, interactive installation revealing how these symbolic species mediate between life and death and by doing so share critical messages for rebirth and renewal.

In addition to a new series of stereographs, “The Vulture and the Hummingbird.” will include two large-scale video projections, one focused on hummingbirds and the other on vultures. Field-based research from Colombia, home to the greatest number of bird species in the world, will be combined with 3D imaging, as well as interviews and documentation from the World Center for Birds of Prey in the U.S. In addition, a Birding the Future AI model is currently being developed and trained on our personal archive of images, text, and sound as well as important and relevant data and research relating to bird extinction rates. This will be used to generate portions of the sound to create Morse code messages based upon tales, stories, and poetry in which birds speak to humans both historically (such as, “Our fate is your fate” from The Conference of the Birds by 12th century Sufi poet Farid Attar) and imaginatively into the future (such as, “we choose you” from conversations with local guides). These messages will be combined with flight patterns, bird calls, heartbeats and more, resulting in a 10-channel sound environment that will be in conversation with the video projections.

Travel to Colombia in 2025 funded by the SMFA Traveling Fellowship.

Travel to the World Center for Birds of Prey funded by Bard College, NY.