Still from Virginia L. Montgomery's exhibition "Blue Moon Cocoon.Learn more about luna moths, the inspiration for artworks now on show at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts.

The AEIVA Science Night series showcases how combining two disciplines can help people see their surroundings in new ways. The Birmingham Zoo will present new and fascinating subjects inspired by works on view at AEIVA by artist Virginia L. Montgomery. Her exhibition, “Blue Moon Cocoon,” features imagery of luna moths the artist hand-raises in her studio and is on display through Saturday, March 21. 

Each Tuesday in February from 5-7 p.m., learn about our natural world while enjoying artmaking with natural dyes, airdry clay, watercolors and more, in AEIVA, 1221 10th Ave. South. 

• Tuesday, Feb. 3, AEIVA Science Night: Butterflies under the microscope, watercolor artmaking
• Tuesday, Feb. 10, AEIVA Science Night: Sounds in nature
• Tuesday, Feb. 17, AEIVA Science Night: Myth of the lunar moth, airdry clay artmaking
• Tuesday, Feb. 24, AEIVA Science Night: Nature’s dyes with a make-and-take dye activity

Admission to AEIVA is always free. AEIVA is open from noon-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Visit uab.edu/aeiva for more information.

Montgomery, also known as VLM, is an award-winning experimental filmmaker and multimedia artist based in Austin, Texas, who works across video, performance, sound design and sculpture. VLM’s surreal, synesthetic artworks unite elements of mysticism, physics and neuroscience through an idiosyncratic visual vocabulary of recursive symbols and gestures. Orbits, circles and spheres invoke scientific principles like the Coriolis Effect — the theory that matter swirls into circular formations — unifying the work around a sense of cosmic awe at the interconnectedness of matter and motion, from the microscopic to the planetary.

In the next gallery are student artworks VLM chose as the official juror for the 2026 Annual Juried Student Exhibition, on view at AEIVA through March 7.

Now in its 50th year, the Annual Juried Student Exhibition is an experiential learning opportunity for students in art, art history and many other fields of study. UAB students who have taken art or art history courses in the past two years are eligible to submit works for the show, co-presented by AEIVA and the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Art and Art History.