The Vancouver International Bird Festival and the 27th International Ornithological Congress are bringing all things bird to the city next week, and one project is celebrating one bird in particular that is ubiquitous to Vancouver — the crow.

As the Crow Flies is made up of three separate projects — Fledglings, Nesting Nests and On the Wing — that will all come together next week.

article continues below

Why crows?

“Because they are the unofficial ambassadors of Vancouver,” said organizer Cameron Cartiere, who is an artist and professor in the faculty of culture and community at Emily Carr University.

For Fledglings, Cartiere held a series of free workshops at the university and community centres around the city where the public could learn how to use a press mold and create ceramic baby crows. In all, 6,000 fledglings were made. The flock is meant to illustrate the number of crows that migrate across the city daily.

During the festival next week, many of the crows will return to where they got their start and will be taken back to the community centres were the original workshops were held.

“You walk in one morning and 800 crows have landed in the lobby of your community centre,” Cartiere said, adding that people will be able to take a crow home with them.

Nesting Nests was also created through events in the community. Cartiere and fellow artist Jaymie Johnson held a series of workshops were people could learn to weave nests from invasive plant species that were harvested from local parks.

One hundred nests were woven over several sessions and will be used to create a large temporary sculpture.

The third project, On the Wing, is a three-part animation that will be screened outdoors using a tricycle projector.

“So not only is the animation about movement the actual projector’s going to be moving to,” Cartiere said.

A team of four Emily Carr animation students —Alisha Steinberger, Chao Wu, Eveline Rozsa and Randi Hamel — have created a series of small animations that will play on a loop following the liftoff, flight and landing of a mother crow and her fledglings.

The three-part animation starts on Aug. 20 with Liftoff at Strathcona’s MacLean Park. Flight will air on Aug. 22 at the dancing fountains in Queen Elizabeth Park and Landing will be shown on Aug. 24 at West 57th Avenue and the Arbutus Green. This is also where all three parts converge — the Nesting Nests will be on display along with half of the 6,000 fledglings.

As well, David Gowans and his League of Flying Monkey’s band will be playing the music for each animation live each night.

All three events run from 9 p.m. until 10 p.m., with the animation starting at 9:30 p.m.

The 27th International Ornithological Congress and the first-ever Vancouver International Bird Festival run Aug. 19 to 26.

@JessicaEKerr

jkerr@vancourier.com