Client: WaveHill

Overview

Glyndor Gallery, Wave Hill Arts and Cultural Center, Bronx, NY
EcoUrgency
Hand cut vinyl on wall
96 x 60 in
July 2021

The work’s title comes from the Leonard Cohen song Anthem, which I like better as poetry than as a song. The decline of the bird population in North America is a loss for humans. Unprecedented challenges continue to threaten birdlife urbanization, cropland expansion, climate change, habitat reduction/destruction, and window collisions—resulting in changes to biodiversity also threaten us. While many species are invisible and others are barely noticed, if they disappear, we will feel the impact through species loss and the growth of invasive species and the work of pollinating, replanting forests and spreading vegetation, pest control, clearing carcasses, and fertilizing. What remains is the deep ecology of the interconnectedness of all living things—a threat to birds or any living thing is a threat to us–this is our urgency. Bird-window collisions are my springboard for the artwork—chaos of lines, crashes, and cracks–broken things interpreted in a matte blurred Mylar exposing the bird wings as cracks cut from dichroic vinyl glow in the natural light of the window. The cracks that let the light in.

Goals

I work site specifically, so integrating the artwork is essential to me. I wanted the work to become part of the stairway, and since the plant portrayed is an invasive Giant Hogweed that can grow up to 8 feet, I wanted to confine the plant to the space.

Process

Curator Jennifer McGregor invited me to create a work and helped me choose a space in the Glyndor Gallery at WaveHill in the Bronx. I created the work for the space and the show Eco Urgency: Now or Never.