Boston Flora

Tag: Todd McGrain

  • Saturday, June 1 through Sunday, October 6 – The Lost Bird Project

    Todd McGrain’s “The Lost Bird Project” recognizes the tragedy of environmental destruction by immortalizing North American birds that have been driven to extinction, including the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parakeet, the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, and the Heath Hen. The Berkshire Botanical Garden exhibition includes large-scale outdoor sculptures and an indoor gallery show (beginning August 10) featuring smaller-scale versions of the same sculptures, supplemented with original drawings and other related artwork. “These bronze sculptures are subtle, beautiful and hopeful reminders,” McGrain says. “The human scale of each outdoor sculpture elicits a physical sympathy. The smooth surface, like a stone polished from touch, conjures the effect of memory and time. I model these gestural forms to contain a taut equilibrium, a balanced pressure from outside and from inside — like a breath held in. As a group, they are melancholy yet affirming. They compel us to recognize the finality of our loss, they ask us not to forget them, and they remind us of our duty to prevent further extinction.”

    Opening reception is Saturday, Aug. 10, from 5 to 7 p.m. For more information visit https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/leonhardt-galleries-2024

  • Saturday, October 25, 2:00 pm – Remembering North America’s Extinct Birds

    Join the Harvard Museum of Natural History at 2 pm on Saturday, October 25 for a screening of The Lost Bird Project, a film that honors five extinct North American birds: the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, the Heath Hen, the Carolina Parakeet, and the Passenger Pigeon. Directed by Deborah Dickson, the film follows sculptor Todd McGrain as he sets out to create large bronze memorials to these lost birds and to install them in the locations where they were last seen in the wild. A discussion with McGrain and Andy Stern, the executive producer of the film, will follow the screening. A book about the project will also be available for purchase at the museum store. Free with museum admission.
    Haller Hall, enter at 26 Oxford Street. Free event parking available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.