Flyway of Life: Love Letters to Nature, Opening Reception: September 11, 5:30-7:30 pm

Flyway of Life: Love Letters to Nature is an exhibition of nature photography and films by Tomas Koeck. Tomas Koeck is an award-winning filmmaker, Canon USA-backed photographer, speaker/presenter, and expeditionist. He’s a storyteller, an environmentalist, and, most importantly, an optimist. He has been on assignment for National Geographic, Smithsonian Channel, PBS Nature, and others covering stories throughout North America and seeks to give a voice to wildlife through journalism, storytelling, and advocacy. Tomas Koeck is a 2024 CTSG Art awardee and his work was supported through the CTSG Arts Support Awards program.

Flyway of Life, Reception, Conversation, and Film Screening, Wednesday October 1

The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery at the University of Connecticut Avery Point, Sacred Heart University Media & the Arts, in partnership with The Explorers Club New England Chapter, Canon USA, CT Sea Grant, the Connecticut Audubon Society and the National Audubon Society, are proud to present a special screening of Flyway of Life, the latest film by award-winning filmmaker Tomas Koeck. The film is an awe-inspiring documentary celebrating the Atlantic Flyway and the incredible migratory journey of North America’s birds.

Flyway of Life highlights how different environments are important for bird populations along the Atlantic Flyway. Featuring wildlife scientists, conservationists, and naturalists, the film explores several different ecosystems along America’s easternmost migration path - showing how different habitats are interconnected. From Canada’s frozen tundra to the lush Costa Rican jungle, see firsthand how birds connect both our ecosystems and our own relationship with the natural world. Tomas Koeck is an award-winning filmmaker, Canon USA-backed photographer, speaker/presenter, and expeditionist. He’s a storyteller, an environmentalist, and, most importantly, an optimist. He has been on assignment for National Geographic, Smithsonian Channel, PBS Nature, and others covering stories throughout North America and seeks to give a voice to wildlife through journalism, storytelling, and advocacy.

The October 1 event will take place at the University of Connecticut Avery Point’s Alexey von Schlippe Gallery and the campus auditorium in Groton, Connecticut. Attendees will begin at the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery at 4 pm with a reception and exhibition of photographs by Tomas Koeck. At 4:30 pm Tomas Koeck and John Dodd of the Atlantic Shark Institute will discuss Tomas’s new project documenting sharks off Block Island. At 5:30 pm visitors will make a short walk to the campus auditorium for the 6pm screening for Flyway of Life followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker, and book signing.

Animal Nature is an exhibition of artworks that explores humans’ emotional and instinctive connection to the mystery of animals. Through works in video, print, drawing, watercolor, and oil painting the six artists in the exhibition reflect their deep engagement with animals as a motif to explore experience and empathy.

In poetic and densely ornamented watercolor paintings, Dana Sherwood centers existence within the animal body. Her female figures don’t seek to control nature but to live vibrantly within it. In his video Animal, Patrick Moser, captures the artist’s passionate, funny, and flawed attempts at personifying animals through imitation. He states, “Love is an animal with other animals inside it.” Chicago based artist James Kao employs skills of “practiced observation…to find what is unseen and always present.” His oil paintings feature symbols and abstraction that suggest the traces of the wild animal in nature. Susan Carr contributes four whimsical, thickly painted oils which represent a joyful and tender relationship to creatures she encounters or imagines. In his poignant drawings, paintings, and etchings UConn alumnus Logan Bishop explores the mystery of the animal and how it helps us reflect on our own existence. Eleanor Miller’s expansive painting, Sky Dance, presents the cosmos with a fox as enigmatic presence, spiritual guide, and muse.