BELLEVUE, Wash — Inside Bellevue Botanical Garden, a living museum, you'll find a memorial to give birds that have all been driven to extinction in modern times.
Portland-based sculptor Todd McGrain has dedicated the past 10 years to The Lost Bird Project, as a warning call to the rest of us.
"As most people know by now, we're in the midst of a real extinction crisis," he said in a recent interview. "And it's my belief as a sculptor the best thing I can is to create memorials to the birds we lost."
Among the birds sculpted, the passenger pigeon which once numbered in the billions and the great auk, a flightless bird hunted for its down.
A documentary about the Lost Bird Project follows McGrain as he tries to permanently install sculptures weighting between 700 and 1,000 pounds in the last place such birds were seen in the wild.
Bellevue Botanical Garden director James Gagliardi says having versions of the same sculptures is a great way to start some good conversations.
"So, it's not just art for art's sake," he said. "It's about teaching a lesson in habitat, susceptibility and conservation."
The sculptures are approachable and meant to be touched.
"They don't have every detail and that's purposeful," McGrain said. "I think of a beach stone and the way memory softens over time and my hope is people will be moved by them, both by the form and the subject matter."
Art that brings back the names and forms of long lost birds. Because forgetting is another form of extinction.
The Lost Bird Project will be at Bellevue Botanical Garden through September 2025. The garden is open from dawn to dusk every day of the week and is always free.
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