Meg Chilidae, Prairie Sanctuary

Meg Chilidae, Prairie Sanctuary (2020)

Artists: Janet Austin, Emily Moorhead-Wallace

Media: Mild steel, natural nesting materials, wood blocks

Dimensions: 60” H x 20” W x 15” D

Location: Evanston Ecology Center, 2024 McCormick Blvd, Evanston IL

Artists Janet Austin and Emily Moorhead-Wallace combined their interests to focus on the theme of humans supporting nature. They spent the summer of 2019 coordinating with the Ecology Center and studying local pollinators through attending Chicago Botanic Garden workshops and researching pollinator habitat plans through The Pollinator Partnership and the Xerces Society.

The main purpose of the project is to create an interactive sculpture that functions as a pollinator habitat and artwork, as well as engage the local community in supporting their neighborhood pollinators.

An additional goal is to engage future Ecology Center visitors and other community members who visit the artwork after pollinators have established homes within it. People using the North Shore Channel Trail that runs through the property will experience a living sculpture with an ecological function.