In February 2025, French street art duo MonkeyBird arrived in Montgomery to install their first-ever U.S. mural on Lee Street, inspired by the 12th-century Persian poem Conference of the Birds. But the journey did not end with the painting of the wall—it expanded into this collaborative exhibit, bringing together MonkeyBird, six Alabama poets, Montgomery stencil artist RC Hagans, and Russell Bush, Director of Sound at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

Together We Take Flight is not a direct interpretation of Attar’s Conference of the Birds but an exploration of what it means to approach the end of a journey—to move toward something greater together. Bush worked directly with the poets to select poems based on their visceral qualities - how they feel, move, and resonate like a song. The rhythm, texture, and cadence guided his choices, and he manipulated the recorded voices of the poets until they merged into bird sounds, dissolving the boundary between human language and nature. The result is an immersive experience: MonkeyBird’s stencils set the stage, Hagans’s birds add depth, and Bush’s layered soundscape creates a symphony of voices and flight—each poet offering their own reflection on what home means to them.

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