Diana Thater

(Off View)

Diana Thater has been a pioneering creator of film, video, and installation art since the early 1990s. Her work examines the temporal qualities of video and film through the topographical expansion into space, with site-specific installations that manipulate existing architectures through forced interaction with projected images and tinted light. Drawing on a wide variety of sources including ecology, the science of animal behavior, mathematics, and sociology, Thater’s work mediates the relationship between nature and the designed environment, between the human and the animal. 

True Life Adventures contains footage depicting the plight of wild animals in the Chyulu Hills near Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya, living in imminent danger of poaching. Though under threat from humans, the diverse range of animals depicted are shown living harmoniously amongst one another, creating a poignant meditation on the fragility of ecological balance under the influence of human-generated conditions. 

Exhibitions of Thater’s work include those at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao; and Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, Houston among many others. Outside of her studio practice, Thater is a committed anti-captivity ecoactivist.