Film Love presents

Motion, Migration, and the Moving Image
an exhibition at the Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal,
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport
curated by Andy Ditzler
on view May 2019 through January 2020

images, L to R: Billy Bitzer, Arrival of Emigrants, Ellis Island (1906); Mael Vizcarra and Stuart Cardwell, Tijuannui (2019); Robbie Land, Contrails/Waveforms (2016); Crawford Barton home movie, ca. 1970

Film Love and the Airport Art Program at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport present "Motion, Migration and the Moving Image," an exhibition running through January 2020. Curated by Film Love founder Andy Ditzler, the exhibition can be seen inside the airport's international terminal.

Commonly rated as the world's busiest, Atlanta's airport sees over one hundred million travelers per year; of those, the international terminal sees over one million per month. In this space devoted to facilitating travel and movement across borders, "Motion, Migration and the Moving Image" addresses the movement of people and the imagery of motion. Ditzler has chosen works ranging from the silent film era to new videos commissioned for this exhibition. The exhibition bridges styles from abstraction to historic documentary and home movie footage. Each work visually inhabits a specific site on our planet, and each establishes a particular relationship to the medium of the moving image and its history.

Thomas Edison's 1902 film taken from the front of an onrushing train is accompanied by Atlantan Robbie Land's study of planes in motion at the airport. Mael Vizcarra and Stuart Cardwell contribute a newly commissioned video on the subject of Vizcarra's native city of Tijuana, and "border fatigue." Billy Bitzer's 1905 film poignantly documents Ellis Island, where at the time one million immigrants to the United States passed through each year. In her hybrid film/video works, California artist Lynn Marie Kirby addresses the movement of ideas, architecture, and plants across national borders. Robbie Land's portrait of Atlanta's Grant Park applies leaves from the park directly onto the 16mm filmstrip.

H. Lee Waters' absorbing 1941 portrait film of an African American community in the then-segregated city of Kannapolis, North Carolina, is a model of "itinerant" filmmaking of the era. They are juxtaposed with the 8mm home movies of Crawford Barton, a gay man born and raised in the north Georgia town of Resaca, and who migrated west to California in the hippie era. His 1970s films are valuable documents of LGBT life, and of his rural-to-urban journey.

The exhibition is on continuous public view in the International Arrivals area, as well as inside the International Departure area.

Panorama of the Golden Gate
Thomas A. Edison, Inc., 1902
35mm paper print transferred to video, 2 minutes

Contrails-Waveforms
Robbie Land (Atlanta, Georgia, US), 2016
16mm film transferred to video, 5 minutes

Movies of Local People: Kannapolis
(Reel three, excerpt)
H. Lee Waters, 1941
16mm film transferred to video, 10 minutes
Courtesy David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University

Mount St. Mary’s Chapel Exposure: Galician Import
Lynn Marie Kirby, 2004
16mm film and video, 3 minutes

Grant Park Photosynthesis
Robbie Land, 2017
16mm film transferred to video, 7 minutes

Arrival of Emigrants, Ellis Island
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, 1906
35mm paper print transferred to video, 3 minutes

Tijuannui
Mael Vizcarra and Stuart Cardwell, 2019
Digital video, 8 minutes

Huntington Gardens Giant Stipa Exposure: California Native
Lynn Marie Kirby, 2004
16mm film and video, 3 minutes

Films by Crawford Barton
ca. 1970-78
8mm film transferred to video, 8 minutes
Crawford Barton Papers, Courtesy of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society


Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal
2600 Maynard H. Jackson Jr. Blvd.
Atlanta, GA 30354


Motion, Migration, and the Moving Image is a Film Love event. The Film Love series provides access to great but rarely seen films, especially important works unavailable on consumer video. Programs are curated and introduced by Andy Ditzler, and feature lively discussion. Through public screenings and events, Film Love preserves the communal viewing experience, provides space for the discussion of film as art, and explores diverse forms of moving image projection and viewing.

The Airport Art Program brings quality art experiences to the airport for the benefit of the traveling public and our employees.