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A Midwest Sewing Project Shares How to Make Cities Safer for Birds

by Kate Mothes

Rows of stuffed birds sewn from colorful scraps of material, each with a tag tied to it with the artist's name, the location, and the species.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Holly Greenberg
Through a collaborative process involving numerous workshops and crowdsourcing, artist Holly Greenberg aims to collect a total of 10,863 birds — the total number recorded to have died in window collisions in Chicago throughout 2023.

Artist Holly Greenberg’s project combines art, science, and advocacy for bird and building safety in Illinois and beyond.

On the night of October 4 to 5, 2023, nearly 1,000 birds fatally hit a single building in downtown Chicago.

Located along the Lake Michigan shoreline, McCormick Place Lakeside Center is clad in enough windows to cover two football fields. Birds sometimes confuse reflections in the glass for open natural space, and as a result, hundreds died. 

For artist Holly Greenberg, the news of the avian collisions at Lakeside Center spurred an entirely new direction in her work. 

On sabbatical from her role as a printmaking professor at Syracuse University in Upstate New York, Greenberg volunteered time in Evanston, Illinois, to help remove invasive plants and restore natural habitats.

A woman with medium-length brown hair and a young man with long brown hair and a beard smiling as they carry bins of sewing supplies.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Holly Greenberg
Holly Greenberg’s (left) Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene is a nonprofit working to combine craft, science, social practice, and advocacy. It is based in Evanston, Illinois.

“This gardener-volunteer next to me said, ‘Here we are planting all these native plants to build habitat for the birds—and they just come and crash into our windows,’” Greenberg recounts. That was the first time she heard of birds crashing into windows in Chicago. 

It’s estimated that up to one billion birds die each year in North America due to window collisions. A few months later, the overnight collision occurred at McCormick Place. 

In 2024, Greenberg launched a nonprofit called Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene that combines craft, science, social practice, and advocacy.

Through a collaborative process involving numerous workshops and crowdsourcing, the artist aims to collect a total of 10,863 birds.

That’s the total number of birds recorded to have died in window collisions in Chicago throughout 2023. But this figure only reflects those that were found; the estimate of real deaths is likely at least 10 times more.

A Story in Every Stitch

People from a range of backgrounds, ages, and abilities attend workshops at libraries, schools, museums, and more. People sew a bird or send one in that they make at home. A template and video tutorial are available on the project’s website (so you can too!). You can even host your own workshop.

Rows of deceased birds from the year 2023 lined up in a shallow wooden drawer. Each bird has a tag labeling its species and where it was found.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Holly Greenberg
Chicago’s Field Museum has a database of every bird reported to have died in 2023, and Greenberg’s project relies on their records.
A table covered in stuffed birds sewn from scraps of fabric, with a notebook recording the names of those who sewed the birds. One bird has a label describing it as a Dark-eyed Junco, or Junco hyemalis.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Holly Greenberg
Greenberg estimates that around 3,000 are finished or in progress, and it may take until 2028 to create all 10,863.
Four onlookers of varying ages looking at a large wall hanging of red cloth, with rows and rows of birds sewn from scraps of fabric tacked to the cloth with labels on each one.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Holly Greenberg
Chicago Bird Collision Monitors responds to reports of avians around Chicagoland, taking more than 3,000 injured birds to a rehabilitation center every year. Like Greenberg, the group aims to educate the public about how to protect birds.
An adult with pale skin, a minty green floral shirt, and a gemstone-set ring holding up an info sheet with a picture and description of a Lincoln's sparrow. In the other hand, they hold a sewn version of the same bird, stitched together from found fabrics of various grays, browns, and whites.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Holly Greenberg
Greenberg and her team of volunteers have hosted workshops in the Midwest and beyond, where participants are invited to learn more about bird-building collisions, migration, their environment, and sewing.
A small stuffed bird sewn from yellow, black, and white felt and other found fabrics. It is about the size of a human hand.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Holly Greenberg
As a sustainable artist, Holly Greenberg uses invasive plants, donated fabric scraps and discarded waste materials in her large-scale, eco-conscious installations, and civic engagement is integral to her practice.
Green grid mats lined with paper cutouts of various shapes and sizes. Next to the paper cutouts are abstract stuffed birds sewn from the dimensions of the paper cutouts.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Holly Greenberg
People can contribute to the making of the 10,863 sewn birds by downloading templates from the nonprofit’s website.

Greenberg and her small team of interns and volunteers start by making “bird bases,” which can be embellished to honor a real bird that died during 2023. She has also enlisted the help of scientists and advocates, like Meredith Barges, a PhD candidate and bird-friendly building policy researcher at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, who was instrumental in securing funding for the project.

Dave Willard, head of ornithology at Chicago’s Field Museum also helped Greenberg. Her project relies on the museum’s database of every bird reported to have died in 2023.

And many of these entries are, in turn, thanks to a team of volunteers known as the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, who walk through downtown every morning during migration periods to check for birds that have hit windows.

It’s usually buildings’ lower levels, reflecting trees and sky, that disorient birds the most. In 2024 Lakeside Center implemented a simple solution that has seen bird collisions decline by 95 percent: a pattern of white marks that mitigates reflections on its windows.

Greenberg recently relocated to Evanston, opening a studio where people can attend workshops, sew birds, and further learn about protecting these vulnerable creatures. She estimates that around 3,000 are finished or in progress, and it may take until 2028 to create all 10,863.

Once finished, they’ll be sewn together into a huge 300-foot-long ‘carpet’ of birds that will eventually travel the country as an educational art installation.