Connecting worlds with bark beetles

(2023)

Mural. Glazed earthenware with networks dug by bark beetle larvae, drawings by acrylic paint. 265 x 755cm.

Connecting worlds with bark beetles is a fresco in earthenware and painting produced in collaboration with bark beetle larvae. The networks that these insects dig under the bark of dying trees serve here as matrices for enamelled ceramic reliefs made by imprinting directly on the trees. These "living" drawings drawn by these arthropod animals - they testify to their evolution from egg to insect, passing through the larval stage - are continued on the wall of the Cryogenics – Research-creation space of the university of Strasbourg by a gesture graphic designer with a more rational aspect. Geometric and parallel blue lines drawn freehand relay the different earthenware “tiles” (each one is a unique piece) by weaving a network of connections from one to the other. These lines establish contacts and an articulation between a “living” environment and a more technical and rational one.
This in situ installation not only uses the "drawing" of the larvae as a decorative motif, but combines two ideas on the wall: that a species takes up residence there and that it "nibbles" our environment (bark beetles are responsible for the death of some trees).