Follow along as the project unfolds!

At the Academy of Natural Sciences, we frequently host visiting scientists, scholars and artists to engage with our collections. Their research reveals the value of our archives in addressing contemporary issues, such as climate change and biodiversity loss.  It also furthers a wide range of scholarship with local relevance and international significance — changing our perspective about the world around us. 

As part of Illuminating Birds, the Academy is celebrating contemporary avian illustration in partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia, a local nonprofit organization. This summer, we will host visual artist and science illustrator Jane Kim in our galleries. Kim will work inside the Avian Art Studio, researching and painting a newly commissioned mural highlighting the wide variety of birds found in Philadelphia and their fascinating connections to local ecologies, watersheds and neighborhoods.

About Jane Kim:

Jane Kim’s enthralling avian artworks combine the precision of scientific illustration with a vivid, animating quality drawn from her training in the visual arts. Kim conducts extensive research, basing her paintings on a combination of direct observation, specimen study and photo and video viewing.  

She received formal training in printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design and earned a master's certificate in science illustration from California State University Monterey Bay. Kim has created large-scale public art across the country, including the epic, interactive Wall of Birds at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The expansive mural integrates the evolutionary history of birds with their biodiversity through life-sized depictions of the 243 modern bird families from around the world. Kim is also the creator of the Migrating Mural campaign, a series of public installations that highlight the wildlife found along migration corridors they share with people. 

Schedule of engagement opportunities:

Coming soon!