Exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, October 31, 2014 - February 22, 2015.
The Singing and the Silence dovetails with two significant environmental anniversaries—the extinction of the passenger pigeon in 1914 and the establishment of the Wilderness Act in 1964. Separated by a mere fifty years, these two events serve as mileposts in our journey from conquest of the land to conservation of it. Although human activity has affected many species, birds in particular embody these competing impulses.
A little more than a century ago, skies darkened for hours as millions of passenger pigeons migrated up and down the eastern United States, a phenomenon so removed from contemporary times that it’s hard to fathom. The ornithologist and artist John James Audubon described an encounter with the birds, writing, “the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse.” Once the most populous birds of North America, commercial exploitation of pigeon meat on a massive scale and deforestation of the birds’ habitat led to their demise. The last passenger pigeon, Martha, died in September of 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Joann Brennan, Extinct Species, Passenger Pigeon, 2006 chromogenic print