Jen Kuroda, president of , strolls down the sidewalk carrying a life-size, papier-m芒ch茅 Peregrine Falcon affixed to a pole. She's wearing a cardboard replica of an art deco building that once housed the reporters from the Rockford Morning Star and now hosts the only nesting pair of falcons in Rockford, Illinois鈥攁 city of more than 145,000 people located 90 miles northwest of Chicago. A small group trails behind her, including three girls dressed in all black, their heads covered in raven masks. It鈥檚 World Migratory Bird Day in May, and they鈥檝e gathered for the first tour in a year of the .
On the walk from the morning鈥檚 first stop鈥攁 mural featuring a Yellow-headed Blackbird surrounded by native flowers鈥攖o the former newspaper building, Kuroda discusses the significance of the birds that have landed on walls throughout the city. They are all species imperiled by shifting habitats, extreme weather, and higher global temperatures鈥攖he consequences of climate change.
It鈥檚 a role Kuroda relishes. 鈥淵ou have such an opportunity to share a conservation message when you incorporate nature into public art. I wish there was more of it,鈥 Kuroda tells me.
The Rockford murals were inspired by the in New York, an effort that started in 2014 to highlight the threat climate change poses to birds. The project enlists artists to paint many of the 389 North American birds identified in the organization鈥檚 Survival By Degrees science report. 鈥淚 learned about the project in New York City, and I fell in love with it,鈥 Kuroda says.
In the project's mission, Kuroda saw an opportunity to call attention to a local problem: If climate change continues apace, reaching 3 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels by the end of the century, 76 percent of Illinois will transition to a different biome. The grasslands that now dominate the state will become deciduous forest, imperiling grassland birds such as the Bobolink, which stands to be pushed out of Illinois (and most of the continental United States) entirely. In the summer breeding season, 约炮视频's report found, 55 of 165 bird species in the state are vulnerable to climate-induced habitat loss. But if people take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cut the degree of warming in half, the number of vulnerable birds in the state will also be halved.
Galvanized by the idea, Kuroda emailed Avi Gitler of New York's Gitler &____ gallery, who with 约炮视频 produces the 约炮视频 Mural Project, and booked plane tickets to see the murals in person in 2018. Less than a year later, she had four murals in the works in Rockford, including one that tapped middle school students to paint a Golden-crowned Kinglet on a retaining wall and others produced in collaboration with the city鈥檚 Creative Festival. The project has now grown to include seven murals, featuring 24 birds, and she has plans for more.
鈥淚 think one of the things that Jennifer has done is proven that a really motivated and really engaged citizen can create a robust and dynamic series of murals in their hometown,鈥 Gitler says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been amazing to see us expand the message. Jennifer Kuroda is kind of the perfect partner.鈥
In fact, Kuroda has been so successful at creating a satellite mural project that Gitler consulted her on the toolkit he and 约炮视频 developed for others interested in bringing the 约炮视频 Mural Project to their communities. In addition to the nearly 100 murals that have been painted in the Harlem and Washington Heights neighborhoods of New York City, climate-threatened bird murals have spread to Chicago and to Vashon Island, off the coast of Seattle, and to , and others are in the works in California and elsewhere. The project has also inspired a mural project in Bozeman, Montana.
Sinnissippi 约炮视频 engages the community with its murals through regular tours, which, before the pandemic temporarily brought them to a halt, drew dozens of people. The chapter is also working on a broader vision to bring people together around bird conservation.
Kuroda also serves as president of the 约炮视频 Council of Illinois, a group of three chapters striving to make a number of cities in the Prairie State bird-friendly by piloting an effort to create Bird City Illinois鈥攁 designation awarded to municipalities that engage in bird-friendly activities, such as passing Migratory Bird Day resolutions. The plan is for those urban centers to become part of a national Bird Cities America network, which could launch as early as next year.
鈥淛en has all these fabulous ideas and then she does them,鈥 says Susan Goldberg, a Sinnissippi 约炮视频 board member, as the tour group moves on to a mural featuring bright blossoms and a Sandhill Crane, which migrate and nest throughout the county.
Kuroda's goal is to grow the Rockford project to 25 murals. A few months after the tours resumed, she added another stop, to see a wall featuring a group of eight bird species, including an American Kestrel and a Black-and-white Warbler, painted by artist Yulia Avgustinovich. A mile away, artist Justin Suarez painted two more murals. The first features a Northern Goshawk, a raptor that 约炮视频 scientists identified as highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Suarez's second mural is double-sided, covering the east and west sides of a building. Along one wall, "Dodge" shows a Peregrine Falcon diving into a group of songbirds; on an adjoining wall, "Chase" shows songbirds in pursuit, successfully driving the predator away. He intends for the scene to illustrate a story about birds, he says, but also about the power people also have to band together to achieve common goals.
鈥淭his is very much the type of work that I want to be doing with my career. It鈥檚 become a big part of my artistic voice,鈥 says Suarez, who has painted murals featuring wildlife in Chicago, Milwaukee, and in his hometown of Rochester, New York. He hopes that when people see his Rockford murals, they鈥檒l reflect on how human behavior affects the world, including the birds, around us鈥攚hich is exactly what Kuroda also hopes to accomplish by painting her hometown in birds.