SUSANNAH SAYLER AND EDWARD MORRIS
I N C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H E L I Z A B E T H K O L B E RT
ECLIPSE
Conceived as an act of commemoration, Eclipse evokes the memory of a single species: the passenger pigeon—Ectopistes migratorius—whose once massive population disappeared exactly 100 years ago. As of the mid-19th century, this dove-like bird was the most abundant bird species in North America and flew in flocks of millions that would darken the skies for hours. A prodigious demand for pigeon meat and loss of habitat triggered a dramatic decline in population over a period of just several decades. The last known survivor of the species, a female named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914. This installation reminds us of the passenger pigeon’s once overwhelming—even frightening— numbers, their physical individual beauty, and the sadness of their loss and irreversible disappearance. The title for Eclipse was inspired by John James Audubon’s likening the passing of a flock to a noonday eclipse, and connects the event of unnatural darkness at midday to a blotting out of life. The ideas for Eclipse emerged during a series of conversations between the artists Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris (Sayler/Morris) and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert about the urgency of the extinction story and the need to mark the anniversary of such touchstone events that might otherwise lie at the very edge of our cultural memory and obscurity. The resulting collaboration is a video installation and publication that commemorate the anniversary and the larger backdrop of deep environmental shifts and large-scale extinctions that, as Kolbert writes, are “only beginning to unfold.” With extinction rates now “higher than they’ve been at any point
since the dinosaurs disappeared sixty-six million years ago,” Kolbert asserts that we are at a watershed moment in the history of our planet. Throughout their career, Sayler/Morris have been deeply engaged with contemporary efforts to develop ecological consciousness. Their long-term projects, A History of the Future and The Canary Project, deal with climate change and, more broadly, the Anthropocene—our current newly termed geologic era in which scientists posit that humans have a dominant impact on the planet’s ecology. Eclipse is a continuation of this work and represents the first time the artists have considered species extinction. In all of their work, Sayler/Morris are concerned with the positive social value of art to effect cultural change, which in turn begets political action. Their projects take the form of direct activism, such as poster campaigns, workshops, and advocacy, as well as more contemplative projects, such as Eclipse. Following the arguments of Jacques Rancière, David Levi-Strauss, and others, Sayler-Morris believe in the capacity of images to “rework the frame of our perceptions” (Rancière), organize public memory, construct belief and identity, and/or provide a legitimate opening to trauma—all of which are prerequisites to political action. Bringing together these concerns for both action and contemplation is Eclipse, a 100-foot video projection (with accompanying soundscape and publication) screened on the walls and ceiling
of the four-story lightwell between Buildings 5 and 7 at the center of the MASS MoCA campus. The video animation loop shows a flock of passenger pigeons in reverse-negative silhouette (white birds against a black background) emerging from a life-sized tree. Initially, the flock appears like a cloud on the distant horizon, growing until it reaches and then fills the tree, its limbs becoming swollen and heavy with their weight. The birds then alight, flying straight up and across the ceiling. According to historical descriptions of flight, the birds flew more than 60 miles per hour. The animation mimics this speed but then slows towards the end of the loop as an evocation of their extinction. The immersive quality of the installation gives
viewers a sense, more than a century later, of what it may have been like to witness these swarms of birds. The soundscape designed for Eclipse by the artists, in collaboration with Matthew Patterson Curry, also takes as its inspiration first-hand accounts of the deafening sound of passenger pigeon flocks. People described being disoriented by the sound, distinguishing a variety of strange noises embedded in the passing din of flapping wings and filth: sleigh bells, thunder, gurgling, hand-clapping, horses, “a hard gale at sea, passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel.� The audio accompanying Eclipse similarly produces sensations of disorientation and awe beginning
Sayler/Morris, Eclipse VI, 2014 (detail) Photograph, courtesy the artists. Specimen photographed at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, Ornithology Collection.
Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Passenger Pigeons, 1910 (detail) Birds of New York, plate 42
with a single high singing tone that precedes the arrival of the birds and then dissolves into an accumulating complexity and density of sound fragments. In the end, the chaos fades as the flock diminishes. A take-away limited-edition newsprint publication designed by Sayler/Morris, with an introduction by Kolbert, is available on the ground floor, alongside other passenger pigeon-related reading materials. The publication, organized in three sections, extends the content of the installation to consider themes of individual human agency versus historical determinism, the relationship of humans to animals, and the individual’s relationship to the flock. The first part introduces Junius Brutus Booth, a 19th-century stage actor known for his intense empathy for animals, which he accorded the same level of respect as humans, and his quest
to draw public attention to the plight of the passenger pigeon. The second part consists of a single aerial image showing chemical warfare during WWI. The image connects the date of the passenger pigeon’s extinction (1914) to the beginning of the first Great War and also links the effects of war on humans as well as other species. And the final part is a series of Sayler/Morris’ images of passenger pigeon specimens from various ornithology collections showing the beauty and fragility of the birds in their afterlife. Here is what remains of the pigeons, preserved for study.
Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris (Sayler/Morris) are Smithsonian Artist Research Fellows (2014), Nevada Museum of Art Center of Art and Environment Research Fellows (2013 – 2015), and Loeb Fellows at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (2009). They are the co-founders of the arts collective The Canary Project and have exhibited their work and produced projects at art and science museums internationally, including: the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; the Kunsthal Rotterdam; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York; the Belvedere Museum, Heerenveen; the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; Exit Art, New York; Wave Hill, New York; the Cleveland Museum of Natural History; and others. They have received commissions to create work and lead workshops at Parsons The New School for Design, Indiana University, and Columbus State University. Sayler received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Morris received an MA from Harvard University. They currently teach at Syracuse University.
cover: Sayler/Morris, Eclipse IV, 2014 (detail) Photograph, courtesy the artists. Specimen photographed at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, Ornithology Collection. interior flap: Sayler/Morris, Eclipse, 2014 (detail) Video still, courtesy the artists. Animator: Nick Roth.
Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris: Eclipse August 9, 2014 – September 1, 2015 This exhibition is supported by The Ann Marie and Steven Kellen Foundation and Eric and Stacy Cochran, with additional funding provided by Light Work Endowment, Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts, Barbara E. Bund, the Compton Foundation, and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
1040 MASS MoCA Way North Adams, MA 01247 413.MoCA.111 massmoca.org