LAIKA: Life in Stop Motion

The interactive animation section of the Museum’s core exhibition Behind the Screen will be reimagined with a special focus on the seminal and wildly popular work of LAIKA, the animation studio that created Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), and Missing Link (2019). The unforgettable characters and stories featured in LAIKA’s films are made using stop-motion animation, with hand-crafted techniques that date from the emergence of cinema. LAIKA has applied technical innovations to this time-honored art form, bringing stop-motion animation into the digital age. 

LAIKA: Life in Stop Motion invites visitors of all ages to appreciate the painstaking work of stop-motion animation, with eight animation stations equipped with 2-D LAIKA character figures and environments that visitors can use to experiment with and create their own short films, then share and post online. The exhibit also includes puppets, sets, and video clips from all five of the studio’s renowned films.

The exhibit will be accompanied by screenings of LAIKA films in the Museum’s Redstone Theater.

Presented with support from LAIKA