Between Moths and Humans

Between Moths and Humans
2018
Natural silk, transfer over silk. 1 x 1 m

Printed on this cloth are macro photographs from colorful woven moth
cocoons that I have collected over the last 6 years. This work is a
continuation from my thesis project “Colorful Places for Transformation”
in which I studied the first cycle of life from the weaving 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 waving 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 nonhuman,
then becoming a human material, then again part of the nonhuman,
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 weaving 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 worlds.

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