OXFORD.- The Bodleian Libraries announced their exhibition, Wonder of Birds, which explores humanity’s enduring relationship with birds through the dual lens of awe and loss. The exhibition is inspired by The Book of Birds produced by award-winning collaborators artist Jackie Morris and writer Robert Macfarlane. Both book and exhibition lament the decline of our avian companions at the same time as celebrating their unique characteristics and cultural significance. With original artwork and prose from their book, shown in conversation with the Bodleian’s astonishing collections, the exhibition is presented through ‘Seven Wonders’ from nest, egg, beak and song, to feather, flight and migration.
Wonder of Birds features significant moments from ornithological history, illustration and photography including rare archival material by one of the first female wildlife photographers. Curated by Antonia Harrison, it also reveals how birds have inspired literature, music and poetry as well as continuing to spark groundbreaking biological research. The exhibition will be accompanied by an original soundscape by sound artist and nature beatboxer Jason Singh.
Ornithology: how we look at birds
Wonder of Birds explores ornithological studies and the history of bird observation through a range of significant objects. Among them are previously unseen glass plate negatives by Emma Louisa Turner, a pioneering figure in the male-dominated fields of ornithology and wildlife photography. Turner was inspired to take up photography after a chance encounter with Richard Kearton - who (with his brother Cherry) was an early innovator in wildlife photography. The exhibition also includes the Keartons’ influential British Birds’ Nests: How, Where and When to Find & Identify Them, widely accepted to be the first ever nature photography book.
Also on display are life-size illustrations from naturalist James Audubon’s Birds of America, currently the world’s most expensive printed book. Birds of America was the result of a decades- long quest by Audubon, who set out to paint every species of bird in North America. Published between 1827 and 1838, it serves as a vivid record of American biodiversity – several species painted by Audubon are now extinct.
The exhibition features the birdwatching diary of ornithologist, literary scholar and poet John Buxton from his time as a prisoner of war at the Oflag VIIB camp during the Second World War. The observations made by Buxton in this diary went on to have a significant impact on his future ornithological research and publications after his return to the UK. A centrepiece of the exhibition is a Great Auk egg on loan from Oxford’s Natural History Museum, one of the last pieces of evidence of the large flightless species, which became extinct in the mid-19th Century.
Cultural representations
The exhibition shows some of the most important representations of birds in literary history, from Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird” to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s original handwritten annotations for “To a Skylark”. Wonder of Birds also explores the global significance and symbolism of birds including a remarkable depiction of Cygnus, the Swan, from The Book of the Fixed Stars, a 10th-century astronomical manuscript by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, as well as an illuminated manuscript of Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar’s 12th-century narrative poem “The Conference of the Birds”, in which the birds of the world embark on a journey of self-discovery. The 16th-century Codex Mendoza, documenting Aztec history and daily life, can be seen in relation to its culturally important depictions of feather work.
Alongside these archival items, a newly commissioned soundscape by sound artist and nature beatboxer Jason Singh gives visitors an expansive and immersive experience of a bird’s world, featuring field recordings of birds in their natural habitat as well as mimicry of bird calls and whistles from the Bodleian’s archives. The artist duo Daniel & Clara also present a new work, ‘Rewilding Imagination field guide: Birds’, which invites visitors to reflect and imagine a bird’s world beyond the walls of the library through a series of prompts and ideas.
Antonia Harrison, curator of the exhibition, says: Why do we wonder at birds? Whether it’s the sense of freedom in flight, the fragility of an egg, the preciousness of new life or the marking of our days with song, there is so much to wonder and to celebrate. As well as an invitation to look and wonder, this exhibition is also a call to attention for species decline, an opportunity to reflect on how we co-exist with the world of birds – recognising our home is also their home.
Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian and Helen Hamlyn Director of the University Libraries, says: Through Wonder of Birds, we invite visitors to re-examine our connection with the avian world. Drawing on the Bodleian Libraries’ extensive collections, the exhibition spans the mythical to the scientific, from the earliest known depictions to cutting-edge research. I hope visitors leave with a sense of the vast majesty of birds and a renewed commitment to safeguarding their future.
