Blurring Books releases “FLACO: The Owl Who Escaped Captivity and Won the Hearts of the World" by Jonathan Hollingsworth

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, February 3, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Blurring Books announces the upcoming publication of FLACO, edited by Jonathan Hollingsworth, for February 11, 2025, two years after Flaco’s release from the Central Park Zoo in February 2023 and one year since his tragic passing in February 2024.

The 244-page visual book, FLACO, celebrates Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl’s unlikely year of freedom, which features 200+ images, including photographs, works of art that Flaco inspired, and a selection of the memorial objects left at the base of Flaco's favorite oak in Central Park. FLACO is the only book where the memorial objects have been published. Jonathan Hollingsworth was among the original group that gathered the memorial objects after the remembrance ceremony and ensured their preservation.

The book features a foreword by ecologist and nature writer, Carl Safina (Alfie & Me). Photographers include Chris Ang, David Barrett, Paul Beiboer, Sheryl Checkman, Marianne DeMarco, Mark Elliott, Molly Eustis, Anke Frohlich and Venus N. Sallay. Featured visual artists include Fred Tomaselli, Heide Hatry, Tony Fitzpatrick, Bill Hutchinson, and Calicho Arevalo, among others. The book includes texts by Mary Oliver, Ian Frazier, and Leigh Calvez.

The New York Historical's exhibition, “The Year of Flaco" (February 7 - July 6, 2025), curated by Rebecca Klassen, Curator of Material Culture, includes select photographs and memorial objects that are featured in FLACO. The exhibition explores Flaco's life, legacy, and the dangers that wild birds face in urban environments—along with the legislation that followed in the wake of Flaco’s death.

It may be possible to arrange an interview with editor Jonathan Hollingsworth at “The Year of Flaco” exhibition at The New York Historical, based on scheduling availability.

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Flaco the Eurasian Eagle-owl was destined to spend his life in a small enclosure in the Central Park Zoo, until the night of February 2, 2023 when an unknown liberator cut a hole in his cage and set him free. For two weeks, he eluded the nets and traps of zoo authorities who were determined that he couldn’t survive on his own, but Flaco proved them wrong–learning to hunt, fly, and make the city his home. News outlets and social media channels around the world picked up the story of the owl who had reclaimed his freedom and was, in effect, untaming himself before our eyes. As the epitome of freedom, fending for himself and observing the city from tree branches, fire escapes, and water towers, Flaco lived unabashedly according to his natural instincts and inspired his fans to make changes and face adversity in their own lives.

But urban environments can be brutal for wild birds, with the constant dangers of glass buildings and rodenticide. Weeks after his one-year anniversary of freedom, Flaco struck a window on the Upper West Side and died from blunt trauma and the compromising effects of a viral infection and four kinds of rodenticide. In the days after his passing, mourners left flowers and mementos (notes, drawings, paintings, photographs, and handmade objects) at the base of Flaco’s favorite oak tree in Central Park, and on March 3rd, hundreds gathered to celebrate his legacy with remembrances, music, and poetry.

As one 9-year-old wrote on a note at the base of Flaco’s tree, “One free bird can change people’s lives,” and FLACO celebrates all the ways that one free bird changed lives and inspired our own humanity.

To pre-order a copy of FLACO by Jonathan Hollingsworth or order a limited edition tote bag, visit Blurring Books.

For press inquiries, email [email protected].

Jonathan Hollingsworth is a New York City-based writer and photographer whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Independent, The Sunday Times Magazine (London), BBC News Magazine, Die Welt, and Photo District News, among others. He is the author of the monographs Left Behind: Life and Death Along the U.S. Border (Dewi Lewis, UK), and What We Think Now: Young People's Response to the War in Iraq. He has had solo exhibitions at the California Museum of Photography, Santa Fe Art Institute, and Center for Photography at Woodstock.

Author: Jonathan Hollingsworth, Carl Safina (foreword)
Price: $50 USD
Format: Hardcover
Size: 8.5 in x 10.5 in
Page count: 244
ISBN: 9781963814095
Release: February 2025

DB Burkeman
Blurring Books
+1 347-786-1746
[email protected]
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