The most surprisingly touching show this past year came with birds — live parrots to be exact. Bik Van der Pol is actually a Dutch couple: Liesbeth Bik and Jos Van der Pol. They create postmodern work that speaks both to the location where it's being shown and to the environment. So in response to the asinine move by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to prohibit use of the words "climate change" (which officials are now disputing), the artists created an installation at PAMM that highlighted the issue. They used live parrots in "Speechless," which was on display August 13, 2015, through February 21, 2016, and played T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland to these feathered dinosaurs. But the birds demonstrated their own personalities and let the love light shine. They sang songs from the American songbook and danced and formed attachments. In some ways, the most magnificent thing about the show was that it brought viewers closer to the natural world through the human-like qualities of these creatures. Though they returned home to Simbad's Birds & Pets, they will forever have left behind the message that climate change is real and that protecting the natural world is an essential part of life here on Earth.