3rd July – 5th September 2026
Redcar Palace is delighted to present ‘Common Stars: Art and the Starling’ our Summer exhibition that uses the natural instincts and socialisation techniques of the Starling bird and the strategies they use to survive as a curatorial system.
The common Starling – Sturnus Vulgaris in Latin. We may pass them every day, barely noticing them. Perhaps they are too common to bear thinking about. With their population numbers rapidly declining, like so many once commonplace bird, let’s pay more attention to them and perhaps we will see how there is nothing vulgar about these remarkable little creatures. Their iridescent plumage, their spectacular murmurations or their uncanny talent for mimicry. Our Summer exhibition for 2026 is a tribute to Starlings, curated for and with the birds.
At Redcar Palace a choir of starlings perch on the roof of our courtyard, singing in, using the architecture of the building to amplify their voices and filling the space with a beautiful and ever changing cantata that is perhaps as much Kraftwerk as it is Bach in its styling. Each year these starlings are some of our most treasured return visitors, so, as a venue that co-curates with our communities, how do we begin to co-curate an exhibition with starlings?
More than just an exhibition of pictures of birds, Common Stars looks at the strategies that starlings use in their day to day life and asks how these can translate into artistic strategies. Taking the ideas of mimicry, murmuration, complex systems, scavenging and iridescence as starting points we shall dive into artistic responses to these themes. The 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen wrote about the “whistling glissando” of the starling, something that he translated into written music in his 1958 composition “Catalogue of Birds” whilst Mozart kept a pet starling who he taught to sing the opening bars of his 17th piano concerto (a theme which the bird responded with a variation upon which Mozart then transcribed and issued as a new work)
Alongside invited artists we will be hosting an open call element which will be our own version of a starling’s murmuration, where we will be asking a new community of artists to respond to the theme of the show. And perhaps most importantly of all, it will be an opportunity to highlight the ever varying composition that is sung to our visitors each summer by these remarkable birds.
To accompany the exhibition we will be releasing a publication that explores the starling/human relationship over centuries, including works from the exhibition and newly commissioned works. A programme of workshops and activities will run alongside the exhibition, with more details to be released through our social media accounts nearer the time. So as usual, do check out the latest news on our instagram and facebook pages @redcarpalace