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The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is proud to present Moth Ball, an installation of a single risograph print in the Museum’s Window Gallery.Moths are an often-overlooked source of natural beauty and wonder. In their print, "Moth Ball, Athens, NY, June 25, 2022," artists Ash Ferlito and Patrick Costello document some of the species they encountered over a single night of mothing. Mothing is the practice of shining a UV light through a taut cloth at night, attracting insects to a surface where they can be harmlessly observed and recorded. The species in Moth Ball were identified during a gathering of friends, artists, and scientists that took place on the 2022 summer solstice in the small town of Athens near the eastern border of Greene County, New York. Revelers celebrated the moths with music, a banquet of moth-themed food, and a forest walk.
The mothing evening has since become an annual event, also known as Moth Ball. Costello refers to it as “part citizen science project, and part site-specific outdoor pageant. A ritual, an immersive piece of performance art, a banquet, and an experiment, with the goal of calling attention to the often-invisible webs that embed us within ecosystems. It reminds us that in fact, each one of us contains ecosystems ourselves–as holobionts, we overlap and damage and nourish and extract and create life simply by existing.”
Moth Ball will be on view in the Window Gallery of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art from February 20–June 13, 2026. The Museum is open from Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., but the Window Gallery is always on view. You can find it on the south exterior wall of the building. Entry is free.
Image
Ash Ferlito and Patrick Costello, Moth Ball, Athens, NY, June 25, 2022 (detail), 2023, Four-color Risograph Print on 80lb acid-free paper, acid-free tape
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