Swallow-tailed Kite (and Others) by Lunar New Year

Painted: 9/25 to 10/2/2015. 

About the Birds: The outline of the mural depicts the Swallow-tailed Kite, a striking bird of prey that nests in coastal states of the southeastern U.S. Spring heat waves and heavy rain, exacerbated by climate change, may threaten the bird's survival in the future. Satellite tags may help scientists better understand where they migrate in order to protect them; learn how and follow one tagged bird here. Depicted inside the kite is a composite of 12 other birds: the Scarlet Tanager, American Kestrel, Black-and-white Warbler, Tree Swallow, Northern Harrier, Magnolia Warbler, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker,  Golden Eagle, White-throated Sparrow, Ring-billed Gull, Common Raven, and Baltimore Oriole.  Learn more about the threats these and other species face at climate.audubon.org. 

About the Artist: Lunar New Year is an artist, muralist, and interloper defined by borders and hybridity, raised within the duality of Ecuador and the United States. His work questions politics, injustice, and cross-cultural identity by making visible the stories that are often left invisible and silenced. His iconography spans a wide combination of mythology, portraiture, and secular signifiers. LNY is also an educator, organizer, and public speaker for such projects as Young New Yorkers in Brooklyn, Yollocalli Arts Reach in Chicago, and City Without Walls in Newark, New Jersey. This mural, he says, is a depiction of urgency. Its painted on the entire west side of The Stella, a pioneering low-income housing building owned and operated by Broadway Housing Communities, and it is across the street from John James Audubon’s grave site, which is in the Trinity Church Cemetery at 155th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam. “The composition plays homage to Audubon’s work," he says, "by replicating his Swallow-Tailed Kite painting that encapsulates the flock of endangered birds.”

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