Join the Kalamazoo Nature Center for an exhibition by Mary Whalen and Sharon Gill, Division of Birds/Soundscapes and Photographs, in the Glen Vista Gallery through November 29.

Photographer Mary Whalen and Dr. Sharon Gill, professor of Biological Sciences, Western Michigan University, have developed a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) project, incorporating science and art to understand and visualize our environment and it’s history. The project merges Mary's Still Life photographs of museum specimens with Sharon’s soundscape recordings, a blend of visual history and naturalism, as well as modern technology.

The collaboration has several layers; it presents natural science in a way to provoke the inherent inquisitive nature of the viewer, create awareness of bird sounds - in a nature preserve and our own backyard, use ornithological specimens as subject for art-making, to contemplate the similar approaches and inquires that scientists and artists share in their practice. The exhibition hopefully makes/helps the viewer, children and adults alike, to ask questions of the natural world and become a perceptive "student of the environment."

Wet plate collodion is an early 19th century photographic process that yields strikingly clear images on metal and glass plates. The Nature Center’s Glenn Vista Gallery lends itself to our vision of an exhibit that would include many of the plates already made, in addition to new work and soundscapes captured in areas home to some of the photographed birds.