Field Guide to the Wildlife of Madison Square Park, 2002

"At the invitation of the Public Art Fund, [Mark] Dion has created the Urban Wildlife Observation Unit, a multifaceted installation (including this guide) that takes Madison Square Park as its focus. Inverting his more common procedure, here Dion asks the viewer to explore the park through the lens of his 'observation unit,' sited near the southwest entrance. Built in the tradition of a bird watcher's hide, the unit is the second version that Dion has created; the first was shown in the Tijuana River Estuary in southern California. Within its current urban setting, this slightly absurd structure--whose markings cannot possibly camouflage its users from the thousands of passersby--acts as an idiosyncratic orientation to the park, where New York City's natural and urban worlds meet. We hope that the installation and this field guide will quite literally open the visitor's eyes to the richness of Madison Square Park and its many inhabitants who live, grow, or walk through here every day."--from the introduction in the book