Silhouette mural takes flight on bird lab wall

A permanent exhibit of simple black silhouettes of North and South American birds now graces the white north wall of the visitor's center in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity, home to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The 120-by-40-foot mural, by Connecticut artist James Prosek, also features black retro-styled numbers next to each silhouette, suggesting a legend with species names. But Prosek purposefully left the key off the wall, as a way to force viewers to inquire or reflect on different aspects of each image. "I want [visitors] to look at the wall first and try to enjoy the diversity of shapes and forms of these creatures without needing to know what the name of the thing is, because knowing the name of something isn't necessarily knowing what it is," Prosek said. "As soon as we have a name for something it limits what it can be," he added, though he will create a handout with names. His mural is also a tribute to Robert Tory Peterson's 1934 "Guide to Birds" and its endpapers, which have silhouettes of birds with numbers that match a list of names. "[Peterson] turned people into pocket naturalists," said Prosek.