Margaret Atwood’s Great Auk

:: via the Montreal Gazette ::

She’s arguably Canada’s greatest writer, but novelist Margaret Atwood has taken an unexpected public foray into a new artistic genre — knitting — as her woollen representation of an extinct great auk is set to be one of the showcase works at a unique, multimedia art exhibition opening next week in Britain.

The show, titled Ghosts of Gone Birds, calls attention to the tragic loss of scores of avian species in recent centuries and the looming threat to global bird populations today.

Atwood’s stitched contribution to the upcoming exhibit at a London gallery will be displayed alongside scores of paintings, sculptures and other depictions of vanished bird species — including the dodo, passenger pigeon and Hawaiian crow — by prominent artists, musicians, writers and other celebrities.

Read the full story at the Montreal Gazette.