Overwinter Overland is a project done in collaboration with my partner, shawn wolchyn-raab as S2WR (an art/engineering collaborative). I created thousands of butterflies out of handmade paper, and constructed them into hallow organic forms referencing the hibernaculum festoons formed in Mexico during the monarch migration. LEDs within the sculptures were activated by a heart-rate monitor, causing the lights to pulse at the same rate as the viewer’s heart.
This project was part of an ongoing series where the physical presence of a viewer or audience implicates them in a representation of the natural world - in this instance, the particular precarity of monarchs. This work gave me an opportunity to explore the semiotics and metaphoric history of butterflies - now an embodiment of light and fragility, butterflies have been demonic symbols and death omens. In reality, the monarch is a creature of duality. Definitely lightweight and delicate, yet so toxic it’s mimicked by other butterflies, and resilient enough to undergo a migration from Canada to Mexico that happens over the course of multiple generations
