Each little piece of art, carefully cataloged and marshaled by Hilary from countries all around the world is building bridges and links between people who would never otherwise have met.
–Avril Wilkinson, Norfolk, England
The Moth Migration Project is a crowd-sourced exhibition of hand-printed, drawn, and cut paper moths. Hilary Lorenz began the project in her Brooklyn, New York studio in January 2017. Choosing moths, a nocturnal pollinator, as the vehicle for cross-pollination and international exchange, Lorenz put out a call for participation on social media, inviting people to create paper moths native to their geographic location. Through social media and personal relationships, the moths became a symbol of the community as the project exploded with thousands of submissions, satellite exhibitions, printmaking workshops, school art projects, and family and community gatherings.
The project has fostered an international cross-pollination of ideas and community building among friends and strangers.
As the facilitator, Lorenz meticulously cataloged and entered submissions into a database. In addition, she set up and continues to moderate a Facebook Moth Migration Group, where people cultivate relationships and share photographs of their moths and personal experience. Pollination is reciprocal, with Lorenz mailing each participant a specifically-designed postcard recognizing their contribution and acknowledging the value of their collaboration.
Each paper moth’s placement in the gallery exhibition represents how the project was digitally pollinated. The visual effect of the massive installation is a migration map representing artists from twenty-six countries and their connection with the project.
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