Artwork Description
Carol Eckert – Memento Mori
Dimensions: 4 x 8′
Year:
Media: cotton, linen, wire on platform
Memento Mori: The 100 Dead Birds Project began in 2019 as a chronicle of humans’ impact on birds. In the early stages of creating the piece, Eckert posted on Instagram requesting images of dead birds with a plan to create a floor sculpture of one hundred individual birds, each one coiled from wire, cotton, and linen. The first image to appear on her phone in response to the social media plea was a common koel that had collided with a window in Far North Queensland. Over the following months she added an Arizona owl electrocuted by a high-tension wire, a flicker found on a New York City street, and a hummingbird spotted on the roof of San Francisco’s de Young Museum, among many others. Though the original goal was 100 birds, the sculpture will continue to grow indefinitely and surpass its original quota as images arrive from around the world.