“LAIKA has created unforgettable characters and stories using stop-motion animation, with hand-crafted techniques that date from the emergence of cinema,” said Barbara Miller, the Museum’s Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs. “At the same time, they have done more than any other studio to bring this art form into the digital age. They are perfect partners for this exhibit, which invites visitors of all ages to appreciate the painstaking work of stop-motion animation and experiment with making their own short films.”
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
MoMI has presented many other exhibitions devoted to animation, including “Tim Burton: Drawings” (2003); “Gumby and the Art of Stop-Motion Animation” (2005); “The Art of Rise of the Guardians” (2012); “What’s Up, Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones” (2014); “Plymptoons: Short Films and Drawings by Bill Plympton” (2014); “The World of Anomalisa” (2015); “Reimagining the Cel: Experiments in Animation from the 1980s” (2019); “D’Oh! Animating America’s Favorite Family” (2020); and “’A Wonderful, Awful Idea’: Animating the Grinch Who Stole Christmas” (2021). In addition, the Museum’s core exhibition, “Behind the Screen,” explores the many crafts and creative processes behind moving images and has a section devoted to animation and its link to the birth of cinema.
For additional information visit the MoMI website.
“LAIKA: Life in Stop Motion” will be on view through August 27, 2023. The exhibit will be accompanied by screenings of LAIKA films in the Museum’s Redstone Theater.
“LAIKA has established a unique identity in the world of cinema with its original and timeless stories amid advancing stop-motion animation with technological innovations,” added David Burke, Chief Marketing Officer & SVP Operations: LAIKA, LLC. “We share with MoMI a love of cinema and are delighted that the ‘hands-on’ element of our exhibit allows fans to enjoy and embrace LAIKA’s singular way of filmmaking.”
Source: Museum of the Moving Image
LAIKA’s sixth film, Wildwood, is currently in production at the studio outside Portland, Oregon.
Creators of the Oscar-nominated animated films Missing Link (2019), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), The Boxtrolls (2014), ParaNorman (2012), and Coraline (2009), LAIKA is credited with reviving the cinematic technique of stop-motion animation by marrying it to cutting-edge technological advances in the filmmaking. All of LAIKA received Best Animated Film Oscars nominations. In addition, Kubo and the Two Strings was the second animated film in history to receive a nomination for the Academy Award in Visual Effects Academy Award. LAIKA accolades include a Kubo received a BAFTA Award, Missing Link garnered a Golden Globe in 2019, and the studio was awarded a Scientific and Technology Oscar in 2016 for its innovation in the use of 3-D printers in animated filmmaking.
