Requiem: Ectopistes Migratorius, at William’s Art Gallery, Lafayette College, focuses on the extinction of the Passenger pigeon. It takes its larger context from Catalog of Extinct Birds (2014), an algorithmic composition based on the red list of the nearly 200 bird species eradicated by humans since the 16th century. Of these species, the demise of the passenger pigeon stands out as the most numerically staggering avian extinction caused by homosapiens during this and probably any time in our history. As late as the mid-19th century, Passenger pigeons in North America numbered three to five billion birds. By September 1, 1914, the last known pigeon, Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Requiem places Martha at the center of the installation in the form of a twelve-foot high wooden birdcage inviting gallery visitors to contemplate the meaning of being the last individual in a once flourishing species.

NOTE: for more information about the narrative of this work, please visit: galleries.lafayette.edu