Motels and Migratory Animals: Doug Aitken's "migration (empire)"

Doug Aitken: migration (empire)
Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Doug Aitken, migration (empire) (detail), 2008. Single-channel video (color, sound), 24:28 minutes, production still. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, A.W. Mellon Acquisition Endowment Fund, 2009.11

This twenty-four-minute video, a favorite in the 2008 Carnegie International, returns for a special online presentation. In a series of vignettes, wild North American migratory animals relocated from their natural habitats inhabit vacant motel rooms, asking the viewer to reflect on our own species’ infringement of the natural environment.

Event Information
Start Date: August 19, 2020
End Date: November 15, 2020
Venue: Carnegie Museum of Art

Doug Aitken: migration (empire)