Monarch

MONARCH is an ongoing research project by visual artist Desiree Dolron, where art, ecology, and technology converge. The immediate subject of Dolron’s work is the eastern monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), which travels more than 8,000 kilometers each year from Canada, through the United States, to the forests of Mexico, and back again. It is one of the world’s most extraordinary migrations, and one increasingly under threat. Habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change have pushed the species to the edge of extinction.

Employing an exquisite economy of expression, Dolron takes this fragile subject as an expansive metaphor for the themes of ecological crisis, migration, intergenerational thinking, and the spiritual world, imagined on the grandest of scales.

MONARCH will consist of a documentary, an experimental art film, a photographic series, an exhibition, and a publication. Rooted in collaboration between artists, scientists, and local communities, the project spans four countries and multiple seasons, bringing together a team of interdisciplinary, international collaborators.

The project is currently in production, and will premiere in 2028.