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Cover image: Time of Death (detail), 2017, Swallow (taxidermy), greenbottle flies, nylon, in vitrine, 77.9 x 46.6 x 71.4 cm. © Claire Morgan, Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, Köln, St. Moritz. Photo: David Lawson.

03 ENTOMOLOGY

SEISMA MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY PARABOLA PRESS EDITOR IN CHIEF MELISSA EVANS EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS BARRETT KLEIN PAUL CAREY-KENT JOE COELHO JENNIFER WONG KUAI SHEN ROSS PIPER CATARINA CARRAO DAVID TRIGG KATE TIGHE CHRISTOPHER EWING CLAIRE KNOX DESIGN LAYOUT MELISSA EVANS TOBY MATTHEWS PRINTED BY HOLYWELL PRESS

WWW.SEISMAMAG.COM @SEISMAMAG

EDITORIAL

he World Wildlife Fund (WWF) symbol has been a panda since 1961. This makes sense as pandas are mammals we can readily relate to; they have four limbs, milk-feed their young, and are furry and warm-blooded. They also live at human scale.

By contrast, insects live at tiny scale, or ‘shock scale’ in architectural terms, and in tiny places. They might seem covert, appearing and disappearing suddenly from burrows, pavement cracks, or from tucked under the bark of trees. Moreover, their physical structures are dissimilar to our own and there is a catalogue of negative cultural associations built up around insect characteristics, around their dissimilitude, their otherness. Films such as The Fly, Starship Troopers, or Them!, stories such as Kafka’s Metamorphosis, or Steven King’s The Mist, and some music albums (pp.158-161) reflect and play into our sense that some insects are uncanny and unpleasant. But empathising with insects is valuable. There has been recent discussion about declines in insect populations, and the effect this might have on global ecosystems (van der Sluijs 2020). Human effects on insect survival range from the more obvious, insecticides and the destruction of wild habitats, to the more hidden, light pollution or introducing non-indigenous species (Knaden et al 2022; Owens et al 2020; Siviter and Muth 2020). In 2020, Crossley et al discovered that insect decline in the US may be less severe than in Europe. Nevertheless, human manipulation of our environment clearly has consequences for the insect world. So, how can the layperson really hear and respond to insect needs? In his Maxims and Reflections (1833), Goethe suggested that ‘Everyone hears only what he understands’. With this edition we aim to provide a small window into understanding the culture of insects, including their sound and music, their organisational and social systems, their games, and their design. Cover artist Claire Morgan’s works reveal and challenge our own biases as we realise that their gorgeous and ordered patterns and forms incorporate blowflies. Kuai Shen explores how ants might play and Lisa Schonberg how they sound and communicate. Alexandra Daisy Ginsburg and Marlène Huissoud develop designs with pollinators in mind, Joseph Yoon discusses the potential gifts of insect agriculture, and Fiona Benson illuminates insects’ relationships to each other, revealing bridges to our own. Through exploring their world further, we find that they are not only beautiful and fascinating, but that they might also be familiar and relatable. So, let’s take an exploratory and celebratory trip through the intricacies and wonders of the insect realm. Perhaps, on understanding them more deeply, we might be able to really hear them too.

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COVER ARTIST INTERVIEW: CLAIRE MORGAN BLUEBOTTLES AND US

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ENTOMORPHOSIS ISABELLA SALAS

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INTERVIEW: FIONA BENSON BEAUTIFUL IN THEIR STRANGENESS

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CICADIAN RHYTHM SUSAN RICHMAN

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ARTICLE: BUGCASTING ROSS PIPER

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STAG BEETLE PAUL BROOKE

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INTERVIEW: MARLèNE HUISSOUD A WHISPER OF THE BEES

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ENTOMAGICAL ANNA COLLETTE HUNT

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ANDRENA NASONII ALEXANDRA BERGMANN

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ARTICLE: PLAYING WITH ANTS & OTHER INSECTS KUAI SHEN

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ON THE SPOT OF A MOTH KRISTA LEIGH STEINKE

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ENTOMOPHONIE LEON LOUDER

HONEYBEE LEG PAUL BROOKE

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BEES SARAH WESTCOTT

Contents

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INTERVIEW: JOSEPH YOON WHY NOT EAT INSECTS?

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PARADISE LOST ANNETTE TOWNSHEND

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VISITING THE MOTH ENTHUSIAST BETH LETTINGTON

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ENTOMORPHOSIS ISABELLA SALAS

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INTERVIEW: ALEXANDRA DAISY GINSBERG A POLLINATOR’S PERSPECTIVE

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INSECTOR JEFFREY TURBOFF

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THE LOST WINGS OF SUMMER TRACEY BUSH

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BEETLES CYNTHIA YATCHMAN

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BULWARK, BEETLE LUCAS ROSSI

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INTERVIEW: LISA SCHONBERG A DEEP ATTENTION TO PLACE

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TELLING OF THE BEES JAKE ESHELMAN

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40 DAYS AFTER THE STORM KRISTA LEIGH STEINKE

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INTERVIEW: CATHERINE CHALMERS THE NATURE OF ART

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OMMATIDIUM SHAWN SMITH

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ARTICLE: THE DARK SIDE OF THE COCOON JOE COELHO

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ENTOMORPHOS HECTOR GONZALEZ

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PURPLE POPLAR POLYPORE ANNA SZALC

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KATHERINE AND THE EARLY THORN BETH LETTINGTON

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INTERVIEW: STEVEN KUTCHER FLICK INSECTS

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BEEHIVE: SHARED HOME GABRIELA DEISOLBI

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ARTICLE: THE NOBEL FRUIT FLY CATARINA CARRAO

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INTERVIEW: UNA CHAUDHURI EXIT, PURSUED BY A BUG

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MONARCH BUTTERFLIES SARAH WESTCOTT

COVER ARTIST

Claire

Morgan

IN CONVERSATION WITH PAUL CAREY-KENT

bluebottles and us

or 20 years – after graduating in sculpture from Northumbria University in Newcastle – Gateshead-based Irish artist Claire Morgan has made beautiful yet discomfiting floating installations with such natural materials as taxidermied birds, animal skins, dead flies and dandelion seeds. Typically, she arranges them with geometric precision to set up a contrast between the ordered and the wild, often contrasting many regulated insects or seeds with birds or animals as a more ‘disruptive’ presence. Insects are just one part of that, but have featured regularly over the years as a – somewhat unusual – art material. Bluebottle flies have been her ‘go-to’ insect, with various other species also making appearances. Morgan explains that ‘When I started working with insects I was interested in their smallness and multiplicity in relation to us, and in the idea of control. On the face of it, bluebottles felt like the antithesis of that, given the way they behave, and I wanted to get some kind of control of them and see what that would do. At another level, I realise that isn’t true – indeed, there’s a complete absence of chaos in their comings and goings – within minutes of an animal dying, the body calls to them, and they know. What may seem random natural processes are actually choreographed sequences.’ Surprisingly, perhaps. Morgan says it is simple to preserve the flies: ‘They have an exoskeleton, and they’re so small there’s not much to go wrong with them.’ She freezes the dead flies to make sure nothing else is living on them, then uses alcohol as a simple preservative. ‘Things don’t decay unless they get eaten by something. So I just arrest that part of the process that usually happens, and that insects themselves take part in.’

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after we returned. Looking for and finding animals in the wild is what I love, but it can long and arduous with no guarantees of success. For TV, there’s also the complication of having to record sequences and specific shots multiple times, often repeating what you said, again and again and faking surprise. This was probably the hardest part and more the work of an actor. Still, any hardship was vastly outweighed by getting to visit a really interesting part of the world. One place in particular, a place called Htamanthi was easily the most interesting. In the north of the country it was a place where few westerners had been and I doubt that any other entomologists have ever been there. The time I spent there, camping in a clearing, exploring the forest and its species with the help of some phenomenal local guides will always be some of most cherished memories. Long may there be places like this. The pressure to get good bits of footage can also you to take risks you might not normally take. On one occasion, eager to find the subterranean brood chamber of a giant dung beetle replete with cricket ball-sized orbs of carefully rolled dung, I eagerly stuck my hand down a likely looking burrow that I found beneath a pile of dry elephant dung. I scraped at the soil, talking to the camera as I my hand inched further down the burrow. Eventually, I was up to my elbow in the burrow and I then had a very rude awakening – the sharp pain of a sting or bite, made all the more troubling as I couldn’t see the assailant. For a fraction of second I thought snake, but as I swore and wrenched my hand from the burrow there on the end of it, still briefly attached was a tarantula. It promptly let go and fled into the leaf-litter. My questing fingers had ruined its retreat and in defence it had plunged its fangs deep into my index finger. Apart from a throbbing finger and the ignominy there was no harm done and I breathed a deep sigh of relief that it was a spider and not a venomous snake. A few days later, my bitten finger now hotly infected, we were on the trail of elephants in very dense forest. All was going well, but then the small herd we were following – about ten animals, scattered in different directions forming two groups itching to reunite, but separated by a band of sweating film-makers and zoologists. Responding to the trumpeting of their kin, the further group of elephants made straight for us, crashing through the thick forest and forcing us to leap for shelter behind whatever large trees were available. Again, all of this was documented, although leaping behind the trees had to be re-enacted as the cameraman was also diving for cover when the elephants were bearing down on us. As well as contributing to documentaries in front of the camera, I have also been involved in the development and refining of documentary ideas for various TV production companies. This requires knowledge of not only my specific areas of expertise, but also the practicalities of obtaining footage, e.g. where and how to find the species in question and how easy or difficult they are to film. My main aim through the TV work I’ve been involved with and also my writing and talks is to try and shine a light on the astounding diversity of other animals we share this planet with and how much there is still to learn. Life is the most remarkable thing about our planet and it abounds here, but we’ve only just scratched the surface in understanding the natural world. It’s a sad fact that we know more about the surface of barren moons in space than we do about our planet. I want people to understand that the Earth is a beautiful and special place – the only home we’ve got, so we need to cherish it.

For more information on Ross Piper and his work, please visit: https://www.rosspiper.net

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Stag Beetle by Paul Brooke © Paul Brooke

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Marlène

Huissoud

IN CONVERSATION WITH BARRETT KLEIN

a whisper of the bees

Sitting at the intersection of design, art, science, and material innovation, Huissoud’s Cocoon (2017) series is a collection of otherworldly furniture designs that incorporate cocoons vacated by silk moths (as opposed to those used in industrial silk production, which are boiled during the pupal stage for speedier processing and to prevent an eclosing moth from chewing through what could otherwise be unwound as a single strand of silk) (Goldsmith 2013). Surreal and alien like, these slender-legged cabinets, chairs, and even wardrobes are covered with accumulations of the organic forms, which are varnished with black propolis, a mixture of tree resin plus pollen and beeswax made by honeybees to seal cracks in their hives (Seeley 2019). In these widely exhibited works, Huissoud celebrates the life of the Bombyx mori moth and demonstrates an alternative to the destructive and exploitative practices that are common to industries working with insect-made materials. Collaboration is an important element of Huissoud’s pioneering practice. In sculptural series such as Of Insects and Men (2017), she worked with traditional glassworkers to combine propolis with waste glass, inviting a consideration of two normally discarded materials that have similar yet distinct properties. For Please Stand By (2019), she joined with scientists from Kings College London to design chairs made from un-fired clay that function as refuges for pollinators such as bees, wasps, and butterflies. In making these habitats for urban wildlife, she sought to raise awareness of the dramatic decrease in flying insect populations across the world and the urgent need to protect these creatures, especially in cities.

Image caption: Portrait of Marlène Huissoud. Photography by Kat Green.

EDITED AND WRITTEN BY DAVID TRIGG

nsects and nature have been a part of Marlène Huissoud’s life since childhood. Born in 1990, she grew up on a farm in the French Alps where her parents kept honeybees – an experience that has fuelled her experimental design practice. It was while studying Textile Futures at Central Saint Martins’ School of Art and Design in London that she developed the project From Insects: An Exploration of Insect Materials (2014), which explored the viability of utilising waste from the insect world in the creation of furniture, vessels and other products. Using innovative materials such as resin harvested from beehives and the cocoons of Indian silkworms, she investigates the unique properties of these natural byproducts and asks how such materials might be harnessed to build a more sustainable future in which humans better live in harmony with nature.

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Image caption: Of Insects & Men (2017). Photography by Studio Marlène Huissoud.

BK: Are those pieces as hard and smooth as glass at that point or can you leave thumb impressions in the material? MH: Actually no. Once the process of cleaning is done it’s very strong and very brittle, like glass. If you throw it on the floor it will break into tons of pieces, but you can repair it. That’s the beauty of it; you can reheat and remelt it as much as you want. BK: In some pieces you combine discarded black glass with the black propolis. Is that to contribute to the wonder of what the materials are because you’ve got this exquisite sheen and reflection off parts of it? MH: With Of Insects & Men, visitors to the exhibition sometimes thought that the material was glass, so it was a way to exaggerate the uncertainty and wonder around this strange material which seems completely artificial, even though it is not. BK: Let’s talk about the role of functionality in design and the aspiration for industrial grade or industrial level design or production. The goal here isn’t to find, discover, or promote the latest industrial material to be used on huge scales, correct? MH: What I create nowadays is really functional for insects rather than humans. In the past, my work referenced objects which were recognisable to humans, like vases, cabinets, or shelves and presented the object in a provocative way. The pieces were almost artefacts which needed to exist

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to give value, authenticity, and a voice to insects. The message was that the pieces were not for humans to place their watches or clothes on them, they were to provoke thought on the concept of ‘material’ and how things have to be made. Now, however, my clients are the insects and I do habitats for them. I still continue to use their materials and make work that is more human orientated, but in a provocative way. BK: Do you experience a greater degree of gratification when working for insects than you do working for humans? MK: When I was working on human-orientated pieces incorporating the waste products of insects, it was nice, but it was not enough. By contrast, when I took the opportunity to really build a dialogue with insects, to design habitats for them, and to give them more spaces in cities, it was super rewarding. I began to feel really aligned in my practice; it just made sense. We live in a world where there are so many chairs, so many fairs, and so many new things for people to buy, it becomes an important question for a designer: what is the need for this piece? With a chair for insects the answer for me was, ‘Yes! There is a need for this chair,’ and it was a big relief to find that answer. I think I can now continue forever because I have a lot of work to do for insects!

Image caption: Cocoon Bench at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Photography by Studio Marlène Huissoud.

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pt io

En to

gi c

llett eH u nt

andrena nasonii

If I could feel, I would fear a stagnant year when all the seasons seize, But I have no memory to mind and much nectar to sip through my straw. I carry the progeny of the landscape in the pockets on my knees. My mother gathered and my mother gave me the golden ball from the trees. From the dust came us small siblings, but let me not dwell on the world she saw. If I could feel, I would fear a stagnant year when all the seasons seize.

On my ultraviolet ride, I taste the charge of acetone before she flees With a net slung over shoulder and her gas chamber jar in her paw. If I could feel, I would fear a stagnant year when all the seasons seize. Ocelli oriented in the waning light of my life, I sense no breeze. The puzzler pins me as I bemoan the loss of all my home, green and raw. I carry the progeny of the landscape in the pockets on my knees. Had I the language, I would beg the studier for my job, limbs bent in pleas. She measures my wings on tape and tells my corpse of the coming thaw. If I could feel, I would fear a stagnant year when all the seasons seize. I carry the progeny of the landscape in the pockets on my knees.

BY ALEXANDRA BERGMANN

I peek out our cylinder well and facet focus on the giver of decrees. We four-winged, five-eyed friends of flowers are the scholarly draw. I carry the progeny of the landscape in the pockets on my knees.

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In human speech we refer to insects all the time. We talk about ‘buzzing with energy’, or being ‘buzzed’, we describe a person ‘bumbling around’, we refer to someone as a ‘social butterfly’. When someone is acting crazy, they are ‘buggy’ or ‘bugging’. When our machines fail us we blame it on a bug. Insects are with us all the time, even when we can’t see them or hear them. We love some and fear others. Any given insect is beautiful to one person, frightening or disgusting to another. In this symphony of contrasts perhaps we see something of ourselves reflected. Insects were here long before us and will likely outlast us. They are totally familiar and also totally foreign. Like ourselves. Vulnerable, both dominator and dominated. Like ourselves. What can we learn about our deepest selves from insects? How might they embody our desires, dreams, and transformations? And what can their behaviour teach us about survival? Tension, morphology, and metamorphosis. Tension – between the beautiful and the grotesque, familiar and foreign, dangerous and gentle. Morphology – a branch of biology, but also of linguistics, led me to think about insect ‘speech’ and ‘song’ – this song that is made without a voice. Metamorphosis – what happens when magnify and manipulate these sounds? This mandate, to create human music using only insect sounds as source material, was an inversion of what humans have been doing since prehistoric times. From the cricket-like percussion of Latin America to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and beyond, we have been trying to make our instruments resemble insect song. Leon Louder wrote and produced Entomophonie over four months, after winning a commission from the Montréal Insectarium to develop a live electronic music performance for the Mutek festival outdoor stage using strictly insect sounds. Celebrating Entomophilia is a series of events presented by the Montréal Insectarium | Espace pour la vie to foster the appreciation of insects. Essential for keeping nature in balance and therefore to our health and well-being, insects become a source of inspiration for creators from various disciplines (gastronomy, visual arts, music, dance, etc.) who then transmit their discoveries, their vision and their enthusiasm to the public.

Entomophonie

MUSIC BY LEON LOUDER

For more on Leon Louder and this project, please visit: https://orcd.co/2a7rrdw https://www.instagram.com/leonlouder/ http://espacepourlavie.ca/

ARTWORK BY ISABELLA SALAS

Entomophonie is available to listen to at: https://leonlouder.bandcamp.com/album/entomophonie Or by scanning the image above with FrameAlive technology at https://landing.framealive.com/

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Image caption: Beet and potato salad with quail egg, agave worm, black ants, bee pollen, agave worm salt, and parsley stems © Brooklyn Bugs

But allergies are not the only reason someone might wish to avoid edible insects. Some people hold beliefs – whether they’re religious, ethical, or otherwise – that may preclude them from eating insects. BK: Let’s explore the ethics of eating animals and more specifically insects, with more and more evidence suggesting that insects and their relatives experience a version of pain and may be sentient (Crump et al 2023). Discussions of cognition and consciousness (Chittka 2017; Chittka 2023) also come up often and are growing in the entomology literature. JY: This is a complex issue, and a personal one. Eating insects, or eating any type of food, is deeply personal. When we think about the act of putting something in our mouths that will then be masticated and ingested and be inside us – that gives us the very sustenance to survive – it becomes clear how intimate an individual’s food choices are. So, with regards to the ethics of eating insects, I believe this also comes down to personal choice. Nowadays, I don’t serve any meat at my events except for insects, so we have vegetarian-focused menus bolstered by insect protein, and I have noticed that many people who choose to become vegetarian or vegan for reasons related to sustainability are very receptive to eating insects. Insect agriculture is far more sustainable than livestock agriculture , with respect to its use of water, land, feed, and its comparatively lower production of greenhouse gas emissions (van Huis 2013; Berggren et al 2019). I find it really fascinating that vegetarians and vegans are among the most supportive demographics at my events, and that there is a growing number of people who identify as ento-vegans – people who live an entirely vegan lifestyle with the sole exception of

eating insects. And so, I think these are just some small examples of the complexity of each individual’s lifestyle choices. Ultimately, I don’t want to make the decision for anyone – all I try to do is provide ideas, options, and the knowledge of science-based facts for people to ideally come to their own decisions. The factors that I feel scientists have contributed towards encouraging eating insects are studies on the nutritional benefits, the sustainability, and the potential benefits to agricultural systems. What I have realised, however, is that we will not encourage behavioural change solely by sharing scientific information. The practice of eating insects also needs to be culinarily appealing, and to demonstrate how they can be prepared to look like familiar foods for people from cultures all around the world. BK: A great segue to what is probably top of the list: what about tastiness and novelty factor? JY: A substitute for something will never be successful without being equal to or better than that which it substitutes. I had eaten insects before, but when I actually started cooking with them, I immediately realised I had to make them taste delicious. To achieve this it’s vital to have a functional understanding of insect protein, because when you take cricket powder, and you bake it into bread, or you add it to a cake, or make a cricket stock for soup, or add it to a smoothie, the manner in which you cook it is going to really vary the flavour profile, texture, and the entire sensory experience. Say you bake a bread and it’s soft in the middle with a hard crust on the outside – and when you toast it, the taste and texture also change even though it’s still the same piece of bread. The gastronomical applications with which we prepare food can dramatically alter the flavour, the texture, and the whole manner in which we appreciate and experience food.

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I was a liberal arts major and I love to share the value and skill sets of the critical reasoning and thought processes that liberal arts has given me to explore the expansive potential of leaping off into the great unknown. There are so many opportunities I never would have thought could be in my life prior to Brooklyn Bugs. I never thought I would be speaking at universities or working with museums and institutions that I’ve long respected and loved around the world. It’s been such an incredibly humbling experience. With regards to what the future holds, I put a great deal of respect and responsibility into having the gift of a global platform, and regularly speaking in front of audiences and college students. I love authentically being myself and emphasizing that it’s ok to be a long haired, colorful, bohemian, Korean-American, jazz chef, and edible insect ambassador, or whatever your calling is. I love to encourage people to dream the impossible, to follow their heart, be fearless, find purpose, and have conviction. I also love to share my strategy for how I like to deal with all my naysayers and detractors – I love to kill them … with kindness. Kindness always wins. There’s great momentum and growth with edible insects and insect agriculture, and it’s not a question of whether all this will happen, but when. I’m excited to launch a couple of global campaigns next year to increase the availability of edible insects at grocery stores, and to bring respect and pride to the very practice and notion of eating insects around the world. We’ll happily continue working with our partners and colleagues to be inclusive and share our work through the prism of great hope and optimism for the future. The experiences of the past six years have made me feel like I’m literally going through metamorphosis, and maybe the next time we’ll speak, I’ll have grown a pair of wings or antennae …

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For more information on Joseph Yoon and Brooklyn Bugs, please visit: https://www.brooklynbugs.com/ and further excerpts from this interview will be available to view on YouTube from January 2024.

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She categorises pollinators into groups like solitary bees, bumblebees, honey bees, moths and butterflies; and their visiting patterns for each plant are held in the database. Some plants suit many insects, but, for example, only some species like bumblebees can get into a foxglove. ‘Pollinators see differently from us, forage in different ways, and emerge in different seasons to each other, so a garden designed for them will look quite different from a garden designed for us’, as Ginsberg explains, ‘all these different coloured and shaped plants are thrown in together because insects see different colours. For example bees can’t see red so they’re not attracted in the same way to red flowers, whereas many butterflies can see red. Flowers have evolved their colours in concert with their pollinators. A great pollinator garden will have all these ‘clashing’ colours mixed up together, but not necessarily in a way that’s conventionally beautiful to the human eye. This makes you extremely aware of your value judgments, and how they’re driven by aesthetics over empathy for other species’.

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Image caption: Digital render of Pollinator Pathmaker LAS Edition in human vision, 2023. © Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg Ltd. Courtesy the artist.

Planting with the purpose to support pollinators isn’t unusual, indeed it’s a trend as people become increasingly aware of the crisis facing pollinating insects – but the key to Pollinator Pathmaker is Ginsberg’s custom computer algorithm, which optimises the selection and arrangement of flowers beyond what can easily be achieved through human planning. The algorithm picks from a curated database of 180 plants to be combined across the whole year, taking account of soil type and the degree of exposure to sunlight to maximise the diversity of insects assisted. ‘It’s an attempt to cram in as much as possible over the year’, says Ginsberg, ‘including plants that wouldn’t necessarily be found together in nature. It’s an unnatural garden that’s designed for nature.’

‘It’s an unnatural garden

that’s designed for nature’

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The Lost Wings

of Summer

uring a recent residency at the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England, Tracey Bush is creating an editioned multiple: The Lost Wings of Summer. Utilising the digital laser cutting and printing technologies at the CFPR, laborious hand cutting is reinterpreted to create an editioned, fold out collection of British Butterflies, to be presented in entomology cases. Reprising her fascination with conventions of Natural History collecting, the interrelated images will create a requiem for thirteen British Butterflies, five of which are extinct: the Black Veined White, Large Tortoiseshell, Large Copper, Mazarine Blue and the Large Blue. The other eight species are on the RED endangered list. The drawings of the Butterfly species were hand-drawn,

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BY TRACEY BUSH

and then made into a letterpress plate. This was printed to create a ‘ghost ‘ image to suggest that these insects will only exist in books in the future. Over the last four decades, 76% of British Butterflies have declined in number (Fox et al 2015). British butterflies are some of the most widely studied worldwide, and Bush has been assisting in the creation of The Lost Wings of Summer by the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (Department of Natural Science), a project which highlights biodiversity loss and which is a dialogue between paper cut, embossed print, and paper sculpture.

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Image caption: 40 Days after the Storm by Krista Leigh Steinke

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on drowning i. ‘cum fossa et furca’ it doesn’t feel like disaster but you know that you are drowning it is not lichens, no failure of elytra, but the way that your heart snags in your chest, its weight the uneven thud of a door slamming shut before retreating steps, a tumult, a revolt. they are worm-gnawed, and moth-eaten, smoothed between the splits, these uneven stairs that slice with their sharpness, that you climb and climb and climb, while the children open themselves, swiftly bloodied, teeth in shards. ii. o, flower chafer, o pollen-feeder, you, it is not the water sluicing away your breath, but perhaps it is the granite heft and bulk of weight that your spiny tergal folds require, that they require! this ossification, this armor, this dance with gravity, chiton-full, sclerotin-stuffed, and heavy, heavy, thick. heavy and thick because once, like during a dream you unpeeled yourself, slowly, shudderingly, from the very integument that made you, your painful apolysis, sieving, tearing, epidermal growth, ecdysis, epidermal failure. you waited, molting, molting, you were more careful, softer, enduring this necessary danger to grow. but then, tanned-baby, they promised you would be stolid and brave, nearly impermeable, but you your sclerotized shield is hard and firm, and you take up more space than before. this is a very good thing because you are anchored or attempting to anchor yourself more firmly in the looming, wild, world and this is a very bad thing because the world careens around you, tilting and crashing. crashing and tilting, the only anchor you have, is your stony exoskeleton, the bony burden you heft on your very back— your reassurance against mechanical damage spurned by all those modern, wefted moorings. it is not the sack of sand, no basket of dumb stones, no unpredictable wind that swallows you or sends you flying, o precious flower chafer no insidious thrip, you, no backswimmer you, no dumb, sucking aphid, you. no, no. it is the iron noose of disappointment, that pulls you under. no backswimmer, no. it is her touch that feels like poison, her soul sick and unkind. it is the threat of cuticular degradation, her hand around your body, around your world, underwater. cement layer sloughing off, cement lapidary unmooring you, a hindrance, thick and heavy. you know that the space she holds for you, and the disdain in her eyes, will drag you under like another martyrdom. iii. space grants you attention but space is porous too, you have hoarded so much of it that you feel like your insides are seeping out. you are internally wounded in this way. you are internally wounded in this way, just as your softer neighbor’s asymmetrical cerci came at a cost, or that other beetle with his smashed carapace, who knows this feeling too of spreading out, for just a moment. for just a moment, resisting, as the large boot crashes down, a father’s touch. the airways clotted with frothing ribbons of blood, tyrannical sunlight singing the blackening innards on display, glittering.

BY ALANI HICKS-BARTLETT

Image caption: Adoration of the Golden Ant, 2017. Pigment print, 40 x 80 inches

SEISMA: 03 ENTOMOLOGY