29 Dec 2016

Sing For Songbirds – designed to raise awareness of critically endangered Indonesian songbirds, one of the world’s most threatened group of animals – is an art exhibition centered around our Sing for Songbirds campaign and it will be opening on July 8. The submitted material will feature as part of the six-week exhibition at the Funky Aardvark gallery in Chester city centre. It is part of a wider campaign to save songbirds before it’s too late, which you can find out more about on Act For Wildlife.Rose Gelder, from the our fundraising team, said:

Millions of songbirds are captured illegally in Indonesia every year. It’s reached a crisis point and the forests – which were once filled with the sounds of countless different bird species – are now falling silent. These birds are facing the very real prospect of extinction. 

Our urgent Sing For Songbirds campaign is working to break the silence on this. We must act now as we can’t let these beautiful birds disappear from the planet.

We’re working both in the UK and in Indonesia to support vital conservation breeding programmes to protect some of the world’s most threatened birds.

Bex Raven, from Funky Aardvark, added;

Chester Zoo has made us aware that songbirds in South East Asia are on the brink of extinction and we’re really keen to do what we can to highlight that fact. We’re looking for lots of people – from professional artists to keen amateurs and community groups and complete novices – to create something in any media, inspired by the plight of these beautiful birds, to display in the exhibition. We’ll try to showcase as many entries as we possibly can to the thousands of visitors that will flock to Chester in the coming months.

Sing For Songbirds will run from July 8 until August 26 at Funky Aardvark’s gallery on Bridge Street Row East, Chester. To enter a piece into the exhibition, artists should photograph their work and submit online via www.funkyaardvark.co.uk by June 29. There will be a £5 entry fee, which will include a donation to the zoo’s Sing For Songbirds fundraising campaign. For further information call 01244 630202 or email info@funkyaardvark.co.uk.