CIRCA Catalyst - Cook and Parks

Associate Professor Cathy Cook and Baker Artist Award-winning photographer Lynne Parks discuss their work. 

UMBC Associate Professor Cathy Cook and Mary Sawyers Baker Prize winner Lynne Parks will present their research on birds.

Cathy Cook will present The Cranes in Motion Project, a collection of several hybrid media projects created at the Imaging Research Center that document, explore and artistically interpret the fascinating dynamics of crane culture in an effort to understand this unique species and our shared ecosystems. One sequence, titled: “Prehistoric Resurrection” portrays a 3-D animated crane skeleton emerging fully alive from a 12 million year-old fossil, to fly away. This animation visually connects prehistoric references to crane survival and longevity to beautiful movement.

Lynne Parks is a Baltimore-based artist, environmental activist, and volunteer for Lights Out Baltimore. Her award winning photographs of birds draw our attention to how current building design practices exact fatal consequences on these creatures. For Parks, the sixth mass extinction now underway is the driving moral force in her work, and the precipitous decline marked in a number of populations provides the source material for her investigations.