ART ON VIEW
Common Ground
at Birds of Vermont Museum in Huntington
May 1-October 31, 2018
Artist Reception: Thursday, July 19, 3PM
Birds link us. Birds and humans need the same things: food, water, air, places to live. We have sometimes used laws to protect those needs we have in common. In 1918, the US Congress put into place the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. 703-712)—one of the first US laws prescribing protections of migratory birds. Since then, we’ve asked new questions, discovered new ramifications, and come to new understandings about what conservation entails. The Act and the Conventions that come from it connect the United States to Canada, Mexico, Russian, and Japan. To be successful in conserving and protecting bird species, people must work together across geographic, political, socioeconomic, and ecological boundaries. We need to find—or create—common ground. What does that look like?
In art, perhaps it looks like homage to the snowy egret, whose plumes were so desirable for ladies’ hats that the species itself was threatened. It could be a human in dancing color, accompanied by migratory songbirds. It might be a Duck Stamp-style painting or a carving linking imagination to bird flight, grounded in Vermont wood. Or could it be the way migration paths stitch communities and continents together?
The Act’s meaning is carried in these and other works: over 40 of them. Each piece in the show speaks in some way to themes of commonality, conservation, migration, habitat, and protection. Many touch on coordination among peoples, species, places, and time. In choosing works for this show, we strove to integrate diversity of work into a cohesive whole.
In the end, we hope to connect you, the exhibit visitor, to the Why that drove, and still drives, the purpose of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
(text adapted from the venue’s press materials)
INFORMATION
Birds of Vermont Museum
900 Sherman Hollow Road
Huntington 05462
(802) 434-2167
Hours:
Daily, 10AM-4PM
Image:
Loss of Habitat
by Aron Martineau
collage
Courtesy of Birds of Vermont Museum, Huntington