Artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood created The Pollinator Pavilion as an interactive sculpture to provide sustenance to pollinators and to offer human visitors a space to encounter them up close, particularly the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, the only hummingbird species native to this region.

Through the careful arrangement of feeders and flowering plants on both the outside and inside of the pavilion, hummingbirds, butterflies, and other pollinators are encouraged to visit and feed. Human visitors are invited to enter and experience this shared space.

Internationally known, Sherwood and Dion have worked with living animals for years and their approach is to emphasize the animal as an individual that is best appreciated by an actual face-to-face encounter. The presence or absence of pollinators in different moments may illuminate the fragile but open doorways between humans and animals. In a moment when colonies of bees are collapsing and habitats are under threat, this work highlights our symbiotic relationship with pollinators. Sparking wonder as well as action, this constructed space also invites questions. How do we interact with pollinators? Are we inviting the pollinators in or are they choosing to come to us? How and why do we try to control or shape nature? Instead of mining nature, can we shift our response to one of reverence and reciprocity?

This artwork draws upon Thomas Cole’s (1801–1848) interest in architecture and environmental advocacy. It is also inspired by Martin Johnson Heade’s (1819–1904) series of paintings, The Gems of Brazil (1863–64), which was on view at the Thomas Cole Site and at Olana State Historic Site in 2021 as a part of a major traveling exhibition, Cross Pollination. Heade’s jewellike and intimate series depicts hummingbirds in their natural habitats and demonstrates his commitment to close observation of nature and his interest in the ways that art and science intersect.

Fabrication by Nina Nichols, Mermaid Fabrication Co.

Major support provided by the Henry Luce Foundation

“Thomas Cole delighted in nature and fantasy, and The Pollinator Pavilion shares that sense of delight. It creates a dialogue between architecture and nature that Cole would have relished.” Mark Dion 

“We know that we have the capacity to destroy nature,” said Dana Sherwood. “Here art is enabling us to experience the wonder of co-existence with nature. It makes possible miraculous moments that can profoundly alter our sense of place within nature and our responsibility for it.” Dana Sherwood 

MARK DION on “The Pollinator Pavilion”

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DANA SHERWOOD on “The Pollinator Pavilion”

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Transcriptions of the audio available here

Read the press release

“(W)e recommend making a weekend getaway to the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, NY. There, you’ll find Pollinator Pavilion, an interactive outdoor art installation by artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood, which is described as a “fantastical architectural setting that offers miraculous moments in which individuals can encounter hummingbirds.” —Time Out New York

“Editors’ Pick: Husband and wife artists Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood have teamed up once again, this time on a new public artwork designed to attract hummingbirds…The two have built a Gothic-style gazebo, painted it lavender, and filled it with their own paintings. It’s an open air space, which is a plus in the age of social distancing..” – artnetnews

“The pavilion creates a radical decontextualization in which individuals can see themselves as part of nature and understand their own capacity to foster an environment of ecological balance” – ARTFIXdaily

“[Visitors] will find a new site-specific artwork, The Pollinator Pavilion, by Mark Dion and Dana Sherwood, a lilac gazebo with gothic touches filled with plants and paintings, all arranged to entice pollinators, those unsung heroes of the natural world. Inspired by the nineteenth-century artist Martin Johnson Heade’s Gems of Brazil, a series of paintings that will be on show at the Cole house in early 2021, The Pollinator Pavilion gives a glimpse of the wonders that exhibition is sure to include.” – The New Criterion

The artist Mark Dion “shows off a newly installed project @thomascolesite” in new video – The Brooklyn Rail

The Pollinator Pavilion | Curator, Kate Menconeri and Assistant Curator, Amanda Malmstrom, together with the Thomas Cole National Historic Site extend sincere thanks to the artists for their generous vision and incredible accomplishment. We are grateful to Nina Nichols of Mermaid Fabrication Co., the Thomas Cole Site staff and Board, and the many people who were instrumental in realizing the pavilion at the Cole Site: Matthew Alexander, Dave Curtis, Stipan Tadic, Grey Rabbit Dion Puett, and Pjeter Noci. Additional thanks to Peter Aaron, Adam Deen, Nora Lawrence, and Mary-Kay Lombino. 

Cross Pollination: Heade, Cole, Church, and Our Contemporary Moment was created by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, The Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Its tour is organized by Crystal Bridges.

Support for the exhibition and its national tour is provided by Art Bridges. Additional major support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

The exhibition is also supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art. In New York the project is supported in part by The National Endowment for the Arts; Empire State Development’s I LOVE NEW YORK program under the Market NY initiative; and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, and the New York State Legislature.

In New York the project is also supported by the Robert Lehman Foundation; The Bank of Greene County Charitable Foundation; the Greene County Legislature through the County Initiative Program of the Greene County Council on the Arts; The Olana Partnership’s Novak-Ferber Exhibitions Fund; and the Kindred Spirits Society of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site.

Support for the catalogue is provided by Furthermore, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

Photography © Peter Aaron/OTTO

Drawing by the artists