“Anna Craycroft: Motion into Being,” presented Anna Craycroft (b. 1975, Eugene, OR), the artist-in-residence during the Department of Education and Public Engagement’s Spring 2018 R&D Season: ANIMATION. Craycroft’s residency considered the rights and ethics of personhood, addressing questions of who and what qualifies as a person that have become increasingly contentious as the agency of all beings—from nonhuman animals to corporations, and from ecosystems to artificial intelligence—has fractured legal and theoretical discourse. To chronicle these controversies, Craycroft transformed the New Museum’s Fifth Floor Gallery into a site for producing an animated film, which she developed over the course of the exhibition; visitors physically entered the stage where Craycroft shot new footage every week for the duration of the residency. Drawing on traditions of folklore and fables, which often use anthropomorphism to narrate moral tales, the resulting animated film confronts the physical and philosophical lenses used to construct and qualify personhood.

Craycroft’s residency also included a series of public programs: a panel discussion exploring the legal and ethical implications of expanded definitions of personhood, a choreographic response by artist Will Rawls, and the premiere of Craycroft’s film followed by a conversation with art historian Gloria Sutton.

The exhibition was organized by Johanna Burton, Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement, and Sara O’Keeffe, Assistant Curator, with Kate Wiener, Education Associate.