Between Moths and Humans

2018
Sublimation on natural silk and interactive model

Printed on this cloth are macro photographs from colorful webbing moth cocoons that I have collected over the last 6 years. This work is a continuation of my thesis project “Colorful Places for Transformation” in which I studied the first cycle of life from the webbing moth caterpillars and the way they construct their cocoons using the fibers of the clothes they feed on.

On the border of the silk scarf is a text explaining the story of silk as a material that comes also from a moth, the silk moth (Bombyx mori), and how humans intervene in the life cycle of the moth by stopping the metamorphosis stage in order to harvest the silk to produce textiles. When those human textiles are forgotten, it is time for the webbing moth caterpillars (Tineola bisselliella) to fulfill their living cycle by eating the textile and also weaving their cocoons from the same fibers. Depending on the patterns and colors of the textiles, the cocoons are always different, and are, for me, colorful sculptures and aesthetic creations. In this way, the silk travels through different stages—starting in the non-human, then becoming a human material, then again part of the non-human, and then finally, as an art piece printed over this natural silk, there is the possibility for it to again become part of the non-human territory if the webbing moth caterpillars eat the artwork to continue on with their life cycle. The artwork, therefore, is itself a glance of an open and infinite cycle between the human and non-human world.

The program works as a model to understand how the webbing moth caterpillar builds its own cocoon depending on the pattern surface of the textile and the movement of the larvae over it. The observer will have the opportunity to interact with the model and see the infinite and random creation of nature.

Here you can play with the interactive webbing moth cocoon model: