Review Santa Fe: Carolyn Monastra: Divergence of Birds

©Carolyn Monastra, Pair of “Pine Grosbeaks”

In early November 2025, I used to be invited to CENTER’s Review Santa Fe. Being my first time within the Southwest and expertise on the Reviewer facet of the desk, I wasn’t fairly positive what to anticipate. As an educator, I like reviewing work; when others hear “critique,” they could shrink back, however I like the expertise of serving to others via their concepts. Review Santa Fe is an extremely welcoming expertise, fastidiously cultivating significant initiatives and conversations. Living in a really rural space, this was an inspiring alternative to see what’s on the horizon of the photograph world. I’m so excited to share a number of of those initiatives over the primary week of February.

Today, we’ll be sharing Carolyn Monastra’s Divergence of Birds.

©Carolyn Monastra, “Blue-winged Warbler” in Oak Sapling

Carolyn Monastra‘s work is driven by a deep-rooted connection to the natural world and a long-standing passion for visual storytelling that can engender socio-environmental change. She uses photography, video, sound, and community-engagement workshops to address environmental concerns and examine humans’ relationship with our ecosystems. Her present local weather undertaking, Divergence of Birds, makes use of a conceptual method to ask: What would our world be like with out the presence and sound of birds?

Awards embrace grants from the Puffin Foundation and BRIC Arts Media, together with residencies at Ucross, Djerassi, StudioWorks, Blue Mountain Center, and NYC Bird Alliance, amongst others. Her latest local weather undertaking, “The Witness Tree,” has been exhibited in numerous places within the United States, together with on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and overseas on the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China. Carolyn has given dozens of displays and workshops to all kinds of audiences to create discourse and motion on environmental points. Her paintings is within the Margulies, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Johnson & Johnson collections and has been exhibited in venues within the United States, China, Ireland, and England.

Carolyn’s work has been acknowledged with grants from the Puffin Foundation and BRIC Arts Media, and supported via residencies at Ucross, Djerassi, StudioWorks, Blue Mountain Center, and NYC Bird Alliance, amongst others. Her latest local weather undertaking, “The Witness Tree,” has traveled from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, reaching audiences throughout continents. Through dozens of displays and workshops, Carolyn has generated dialogue and impressed motion on environmental points with numerous audiences. Her paintings is held in distinguished collections together with Margulies, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Johnson & Johnson, and has been exhibited internationally within the United States, China, Ireland, and England. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Carolyn has lived in Brooklyn, New York for over 25 years. She works wherever birds are discovered.

Follow Carolyn on Instagram: @Carolyn_Monastra

©Carolyn Monastra, “Gray Catbird” with Mapleleaf Viburnum

Divergence of Birds

Divergence of Birds is my conceptual artwork undertaking that addresses the environmental impacts of local weather change and habitat destruction via socially engaged apply. Through images, site-specific set up, a devoted web site, and interactive workshops, this undertaking builds bridges between science and artwork, presenting the startling realities of the way forward for our pure world with a name to motion to forestall its demise.

For this undertaking, I {photograph} paper cutouts of almost 400 threatened species throughout the birds’ present habitats to seem lifelike, however upon nearer inspection, they reveal themselves to be photographs inside photographs. The pictures on this sequence disrupt the informal gaze, subverting expectations of nature images. The work invitations shut consideration to the birds whereas calling audiences to take part in local weather activism to guard our birds and different threatened species.

©Carolyn Monastra, “Eared Grebe and Chick” on a Lake

Epiphany Knedler: How did your undertaking come about?

Carolyn Monastra: In 2015, whereas engaged on “The Witness Tree,” my documentary undertaking about international local weather impacts, I learn a report by the National Audubon Society about birds and local weather change. First revealed in 2014 and up to date in 2019, these research warn that, with out conservation actions by people, local weather disruptions may have an effect on the habitat vary of two-thirds of North American birds by 2080. This actuality startled and saddened me. More importantly, it motivated me to focus my consideration on birds and the specter of species extinction.

Rather than create a straight photographic survey of climate-threatened birds, I looked for a method to interact audiences in questioning the roles we every play within the ongoing erasure of birds. I recalled that in a 2001 residency at Millay Colony, I grew to become fascinated by the intricate structure that birds make use of in nest constructing. I bought and studied secondhand books on hen habits. Inspired, I constructed a nest. I reduce out among the photos of birds to create a tableau, which I titled “Congregation.” It was the only real work utilizing cutouts in a bigger sequence of constructed narratives entitled “The Dominion of Trees.” I couldn’t have predicted then that cutouts of birds would at some point turn out to be the idea of one other undertaking.

Around the time I found the primary Audubon report, I used to be studying Philip Ok. Dick’s 1968 dystopian sci-fi novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by which electrical variations of once-commonplace animals are so lifelike that they idiot people. The simulacra on this story, together with my cutouts in “Congregation,” impressed me to embrace a conceptual framework for “Divergence of Birds.” Although audiences typically suppose my “birds” are actual, my intention is to not trick individuals, however to interact them in conversations round conservation in order that we aren’t left with simply facsimiles in our future.

©Carolyn Monastra, “California Scrub-Jay” in Tree with Moss

EK: Is there a selected picture that’s your favourite or notably significant to this sequence?

CM: Having photographed over 300 birds for a undertaking that may embrace roughly 400, it’s not doable to decide on a single favourite. But I want to share some of the significant moments that occurred in the course of the creation of a photograph for this undertaking.

In 2019, my mom and I witnessed a whole bunch of 1000’s of Sandhill Cranes on their migration route alongside the Platte River close to Kearney, Nebraska. It was a memorable and awe-inspiring expertise to share with my mother. While I usually work alone on my images initiatives, she assisted me with my “Sandhill Crane” picture by crouching on the fringe of a harvested cornfield holding a photograph of a crane on a stick, making a treasured collaborative second. We had been strolling again to the Audubon Center when a volunteer, recognizing my crane cutout, excitedly exclaimed, “I was wondering what that bird was doing so close to the road! I thought it was real!” Such interactions with unsuspecting audiences are great alternatives to debate my undertaking and the motivations behind it. While I didn’t must expound on wildlife conservation to that volunteer, who was clearly a fellow hen lover, it was enjoyable to introduce him to the style of conceptual artwork.

©Carolyn Monastra, “Bohemian Waxwings” in Eastern Red Cedar

EK: Can you inform us about your creative apply?

CM: I take advantage of images as a story means to bridge gaps between particular person human tales and common situations just like the shared disaster of local weather change. Past initiatives embrace studying in regards to the lives of strangers that I photographed on metropolis streets, establishing fictive narratives for my sequence, “The Dominion of Trees,” and chronicling environmental impacts throughout the globe in “The Witness Tree.” My creative model has advanced through the years, but my background as an English main and early profession as a social employee proceed to anchor my apply in storytelling and social justice.

Around 2009, as I discovered extra in regards to the local weather disaster, I felt compelled to deal with the difficulty via my paintings.  Although I by no means thought-about myself a “documentary photographer” per se, since there was (and maybe nonetheless is) a lot local weather denial within the United States, for “The Witness Tree” I felt it was finest to make use of a straight-forward method. With “Divergence of Birds,” nevertheless, I wished to make use of a course of that gives higher poetic license.

One manner that “The Witness Tree” and “Divergence of Birds” differ from my earlier initiatives is that they’re each extra research-oriented. I’ve massive spreadsheets for each initiatives to trace their numerous parts. For “Divergence of Birds,” I log the hen’s dimension, local weather impacts, sort of habitat, maps of sightings, and extra. I additionally maintain observe of the supply of every photograph I take advantage of for the cutouts: I purchase the pictures from inventory businesses, Creative Commons and public area web sites, and as presents from birders and ornithologists.

“Divergence of Birds” differs from most wildlife images with its typical shallow depth-of-field in that I attempt to present extra particulars of the habitats the birds are present in: the kind of panorama (subject, forest, water, and so forth.) or species of timber or vegetation they favor. Several occasions, I’ve arrange a cutout to {photograph}, and I’ll hear or see a distinct hen close by, as occurred when photographing the “California Scrub-Jay.” When this happens, I change the cutout to match the hen present in that precise location. Also, as I’ve discovered extra about local weather impacts on flora, I attempt to place my cutouts in native species, such because the mapleleaf viburnum that surrounds my “Gray Catbird.”

I used to be an informal birder earlier than I began this undertaking, however I’ve discovered a lot about birds, and that data has helped me strengthen pictures. The birding group is so welcoming and almost everybody I meet is curious and inspiring about my work. I wish to give a shout-out to the members of the Brooklyn Bird Club with whom I ceaselessly hen, in addition to the NYC Bird Alliance, who’ve been very supportive of this undertaking, together with by awarding me an artist residency in 2023 at their summer time residence on Governors Island. Other residency applications have been integral to my course of, together with Ucross (Clearmont, WY), StudioWorks (Eastport, ME), Caldera (Sisters, OR), Mother’s Milk (Newton, KS), the LMCC Arts Center on Governors Island (NYC), Hypatia-in-the-Woods (Shelton, WA), Rensing Center (Pickens, SC), and, forthcoming in April, I’ll be at The Studios of Key West in Florida. The Puffin Foundation has additionally supported this undertaking with a manufacturing grant, and The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has been extremely open to letting me go to, {photograph} specimens, and ask questions. I couldn’t have made this undertaking with out the beneficiant help of so many individuals and organizations.

©Carolyn Monastra, “Sandhill Crane” in Harvested Cornfield

EK: What’s subsequent for you?

CM: I plan to complete photographing the hen cutouts within the coming months. I nonetheless have a superb bit of choosing and modifying of pictures from the undertaking. Getting the “Divergence of Birds” web site launched final yr was an enormous effort, and my internet designer, Nicole Jaffe at Piknik Press, will get a number of credit score for her inventive and playful method to presenting the work. There are about sixty hen photographs on the web site now, and though I’ll add extra, my major focus this yr is to create and publish a guide of the undertaking.

I’ll have a solo “Divergence of Birds” exhibit at Soka University in Aliso Viejo, California, from February 12-August 26, 2026, with an artist speak on February 14. And beginning in January 2027, I will probably be a part of a five-year touring exhibit organized by Kathy Dowell of Mid-America Arts Alliance. Entitled “Murmurations: For the Love of Birds,” the exhibit will even characteristic work by Alice Hargrave and Carmen Ostermann. If any colleges, galleries, or different organizations are concerned with internet hosting this exhibit, they will contact ExhibitsUSA.

Quietly, I’ve began engaged on a brand new large-scale undertaking. Although it’s in a roundabout way associated to local weather change, it’s in regards to the “climate” of sure cities within the U.S. It’s too early to offer extra particulars on this this undertaking—so verify again with me in a few years!

©Carolyn Monastra, “Congregation” from the undertaking “The Dominion of Trees”

©Carolyn Monastra, “Hammond’s Flycatcher” perched on a Stump

©Carolyn Monastra, “Savannah Sparrow” in Summer Field

©Carolyn Monastra, “Rose-breasted Grosbeak” in Forsythia Bush

©Carolyn Monastra, “Redpoll” in Winter Landscape

©Carolyn Monastra, “Sharp-shinned Hawk” with Urban Skyline

©Carolyn Monastra, “Clark’s Nutcracker” in Winter Landscape

©Carolyn Monastra, “Spotted Owl” Perched on Felled Old-growth Tree

Epiphany Knedler is an interdisciplinary artist + educator exploring the methods we interact with historical past. She graduated from the University of South Dakota with a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Political Science and accomplished her MFA in Studio Art at East Carolina University. She relies in Aberdeen, South Dakota, serving as an Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Art Department at Northern State University, a Content Editor with LENSCRATCH, and the co-founder and curator of the artwork collective Midwest Nice Art. Her work has been exhibited within the New York Times, the Guardian, Vermont Center for Photography, Lenscratch, Dek Unu Arts, and awarded via Lensculture, the Lucie Foundation, F-Stop Magazine, and Photolucida Critical Mass.
Follow Epiphany on Instagram: @epiphanysk