It’s a hard time to be a bird. Over the past fifty years, almost three billion birds—nearly one-third of the total population—have disappeared from North America. Habitat loss, climate change, pesticides, and other human-caused threats have contributed to a startling increase in extinction rates and undermined the stability of our ecosystems. Ten Thousand Birds was provoked by a mass die-off of migrating songbirds between Texas and Nebraska in September of 2020. Heading from Alaska and Canada to winter habitats in Central and South America, thousands of emaciated songbirds were forced from the sky by a sudden cold snap in August and September. Yards and parks and fields were scattered with their brightly-hued bodies, many reduced to little more than bone and feather.

Rather than a lament, however, Ten Thousand Birds creates the feeling of walking into an aviary. The exhibition takes its name from a chamber orchestra composed by John Luther Adams based on birdsongs heard across the northeast and Midwest. Recorded by the ensemble Alarm Will Sound, Adams’s score follows song cycles from morning to night and back again, exploring the relationship between nature and music. In photographs, prints, sculpture, tapestry, and fabric, the exhibition’s other artists – including Rachel Berwick, Barbara Bosworth, Walton Ford, Kirsten Furlong, Paula McCartney, Fred Tomaselli, and Terri Weifenbach – explore migration, habitat, the threat of extinction, and how birds navigate their way through the night sky.

Day and night, our lives are surrounded by thousands of birds. Hearing their song, we reflexively look upward, hoping to catch a glimpse as they trace graceful, invisible patterns above us. Ten Thousand Birds reminds us of the joy that fills the skies, its fragility, and its inspiring tenacity in the face of a fragmenting world.

For information on hosting Ten Thousand Birds, please contact exhibitions@barrylopezfoundation.org