Born in San Francisco, USA, in 1962 / Lives and works in Los Angeles, California, USA

Diana Thater’s video installation transforms the gallery environment, injecting into a Venetian palazzo a forest landscape where Monarch butterflies struggle to thrive. Her images of the insect’s migratory resting place stem from the artist’s 2006–2008 project on its endangered habitat in Michoacán, Mexico. Five monitors lie on the floor, mimicking the butterflies’ position on the ground when Thater first encountered them. Although they normally live in vegetation, heightened defoliation is driving them onto the forest floor. We, too, approach the insects on the floor, bathed in bright orange light that disrupts the gallery’s architectural setting and immerses us in the butterflies’ terrain.

www.thaterstudio.com