For this year’s annual Co-Cureate show, students from Art & Design and Music teamed up to create an immersive installation highlighting seven threatened or endangered bird species. Where Should I Build My Nest If Not With You? combined sculpture, sound, and projection to visualize ecological data collected by the student collaborators, with guidance from Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute data scientist Oliver Stringham.
In the gallery space, Art & Design students Jay Huetz (BFA ’28), Pilar Uhl (BFA ’27), Jessica Yu (BFA ’28), India Davis (MFA ’27), and Mahsa Masoumi (MFA ’27) used sculpture and projection to visually represent the New Jersey ecosystems inhabited by the seven bird species. Soundscapes composed by PhD Composition students Leif Haley and Stephanie Leotsakos could also be heard throughout the exhibition, turning the research data into sonic-stories.
One recording, inspired by the Piping Plover, is split into three sections: the first section establishes the plovers’ presence through the sound of crashing waves and recordings of their calls; the second introduces human interference with the sound of footsteps; the third has the footsteps recede, as the plover calls fade and the sound of rushing water overtakes the soundscape. Composed by Leotsakos, the soundscape represents data collected by the Art & Design students, which found that 17% of documented Piping Plover nest failures were caused by flooding in 2025.
In their description for the installation, Haley and Leotsakos wrote that “the installation explores habitat not as a static place but as an ongoing ecological process, highlighting forces that continually shape these landscapes.”
Where Should I Build My Nest If Not With You? was made possible with assistance from faculty members Scott Ordway, Jeanine Oleson, and Atif Akin, with support from Rutgers School of Engineering Associate Dean for Research and Development, Wade Trappe, Rutgers Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Collaboratory Executive Director for Research Development and Strategy, Sheila Borges Rajguru, and Mason Gross School of the Arts Director of Research, Stephanie Cronenberg.
The 2026 Co-Cureate show ran from September 24 through October 10 at Mason Gross Galleries. See more photos from Where Should I Build My Nest If Not With You? here.