Elusive Wildlife Caught on Film

When Jill Musnicki says “I’m very much into nature,” it’s no wonder. A fourth-generation East Ender whose ancestors were Bridgehampton and Sagaponack farmers, the local terrain was her birthright. For the past five years, that legacy has informed her artwork.

A Parrish Road Show installation in 2012, “what comes around,”  marked the beginning of a photographic venture. She had placed numerous motion-activated surveillance cameras at various remote locations on the South Fork and recorded the ordinarily unseen behavior of animals in natural habitats. The images were assembled into a three-channel video installation shown in a barn at the Bridgehampton Historical Society. “It was something I had always wanted to do,” she said.

Since then Ms. Musnicki has undertaken several similar projects, one at the Andy Warhol Preserve in Montauk in connection with the Nature Conservancy, another with the Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center. Her most recent work, “The Next Generation,” will be unveiled for one day only, on Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m., at her family’s nursery in Bridgehampton.

For this, Ms. Musnicki placed her cameras in Wainscott at Georgica Pond last spring, where a friend had told her a family of foxes lived. “The camera was supposed to keep going,” she said, “but it only worked for one day. However, I did get something like 5,000 images.” She explained why she had chosen not to turn the images into a video. “It’s just too technical. At this point, if I can’t do it myself, it’s upsetting to me.” Instead she will exhibit 10 photographs of the fox family, each one affixed to a tree in a wooded area. 

The photographs and the site are perfectly suited to each other. She will also show photographs of eagles taken by cameras set up in Sagaponack after a tip from a friend. “People get drawn into nature when you do a project like this, and they want to help; they keep their eyes open.”

“Fox are usually so elusive, it’s hard to get them, but in these photographs they look as if they’re posing. I couldn’t have staged it any better myself.” The photographs, each 10 x 10 inches, in editions of 30, will be sold through Salomon Contemporary. 

Speaking of her recent work, Ms. Musnicki said, “I hope to sit down someday and turn it all into something. In 20 years, when there’s no land left, it’ll be a real document.”

The reception will take place at 297 Paul’s Lane in Bridgehampton. The entrance to the long blacktop driveway will be marked.