Insect populations worldwide are experiencing a meaningful decline caused by habitation loss, extreme weather changes, pollution and other environmental factors. Insects in the Anthropocene exist in complex systems, entangled with humans, plants, other-species and organic-matter. They are vulnerable to ecological changes and are involved in almost every part of the terrestrial environment and have been for millions of years.

Throughout Western history, at times of change, flux and transformation, artist examine the natural world and address these unstable and complicated relations. From 17th century naturalist illustrations to contemporary bio-mechanical installations, these are moments when disciplines collide, understandings of the natural world expand and artists offer new tools to make sense of ecological crisis and planetary change. By extension, this effort also questions what it means to be human.

This paper focuses specifically on moths and explores the ways artists engage with the biological process of metamorphosis in pupal stage, and the related concepts of transformation and symbiosis. A number of artists working at the intersection of science and art approach moths in imaginative and intimate ways. This paper addresses how artists imagine transformation and plant-moth symbiosis through interdisciplinary art practice. Primary case studies for this paper include, Maria Sybilla Merian’s  Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium  and The Wonderous Transformation of Caterpillars 1705, Tomás Saraceno, How to Entangle the Universe in a Spider Web, 2017, Anicka Y, Biologising the Machine (tentacular trouble), 2019,  Mire Lee, Carriers 2020 and Robert Hooke Flea, 1664. 

The diverse stories told about moths in popular culture, art history, biology and literature are evidence of moths being both real and imagined – figurations. The small and often un-regarded world of moths is a valuable point of research and an existing line of artistic inquiry.

This research paper is framed by wider debates on the Anthropocene and the role of art in the Anthropocene. Including by theorists such as Anna Tsing who proposes methods of understanding human-nature relations in terms of interspecies complexities and dependencies, Donna Haraway who emphasises story-telling and ‘staying with’ non-human actors and The Extinction Studies Group’s call for a ‘witnessing’ of the dramatically changing world and its inhabitants. 

Artistic imaginings of moths, with moths provide valuable contributions to inter-species thinking and offer ways of living on a damaged planet, understanding human-ness and finding hope in loss.