Migration is an interactive installation of kinetic sculptures. Over thirty life size and three-quarter size silhouetted figures hang horizontally from the ceiling. A small red egg is suspended by monofilament from each figure. When the viewer pulls on the string, the balanced figures “take flight.” The arms and bodies of the figures are carefully linked to create a slow, majestic flying motion.

Migration
2007-2008
Foam core, wood, metal & monofilament
Each figure 64" x 64" x 32" or 40" x 40" x 20"
Installation at Knoedler Project Space, New York, NY
1-minute video of the kinetic sculpture
view of prints
detail of Winged Bone prints
2008
Digital print on paper, edition of 15
13" x 19"
view of red wooden eggs hanging from the sculptures
close up of red egg
Chapbook printed to accompany the exhibition
Edition of 1500
The drawings in this chapbook are visual footnotes to the kinetic sculptures presented in Migration. Most of the images originate from biology textbooks and map animal behavior such as flocking. A few of the images are my own composite drawings. I wanted to explore how these diagrams illustrate a tension between rhythm and stasis. Both Migration and its related imagery utilize the egg as a potent symbol of biological imperative, desire, creativity, and potential. The project as a whole exploits the contradiction between the delicate graphing of physical laws, and their subjects, which express the roughshod, involuntary forces of nature. This tenuous balance between what is possible to explain and what is inexplicable is embodied in the act of flight.


All artwork copyright Heather Cox

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