Gail Tarantino in residency at MacArthur Place

Created during her Uprise Art x MacArthur Place residency, Gail Tarantino's newest series explores birdsong through a mnemonic lens, chronicling the percussive and rhythmic sounds with overlapping text. Go behind the scenes of her one-week residency below.

Wanting to understand more about bird vocalization, I began looking at spectrograms that show the frequency of sound over time. To further understand the secret language of birds, I combed over a list of bird song mnemonics. Seeing what birds say phonetically, was helpful in sharpening my ear. Birds learn to sing through the process of vocal learning in ways that mirror how humans learn language, through listening, imitating, and practicing.

Gail Tarantino

Approaching the series through a mnemonic lens, chronicling the percussive and rhythmic sounds with overlapping text, I’ve created a form of bird song syntax. Additionally, using a palette heavily influenced by the plumage of each bird species, sparks my own memory and knowledge of bird life, by making a visually innovative, oversized field guide.

Gail Tarantino

Photos by Emma K Creative