An Illustrated History of Domestic Arthropods
Arthropods are the largest phylum on earth, with 100 million species. We are surrounded by them at all times. They are the mites that live on our skin, the wasps under our porches, the centipedes in the basement. These numerous, often tiny creatures are intimately familiar to us, and they are also alien, alarming creatures with strange, invertebrate body plans and glittering exoskeletons. This project explores the strangeness and familiarity of arthropods by imagining a world in which humans are the only vertebrates and giant spiders, bees, lobsters, and beetles roam the earth. At the core of this project is the book An Illustrated History of Domestic Arthropods, an in-world exploration of the domestication of the beloved centipede, the noble grasshopper, and the industrially useful spider, among many others. A limited edition of this book that was printed and bound at Paper Machine in New Orleans was published by University of New Orleans Press in 2021. The trade paperback edition was published in 2022 and is available here.
Research during my masters degree program at The University of Edinburgh and afterward has informed a rich material culture for this imagined world, and the artifacts I have made during this process have been used to create installations at Public Space One’s Close House in Iowa City Iowa in collaboration with musician and visual artist Daniel Murphy, Barrister’s Gallery in New Orleans Louisiana, Big Blue Gallery in Fairfield Iowa, and at the 2017 ECA Illustration degree show at the University of Edinburgh. This is an ongoing project.