Insects on the Menu? (2025)
Video installation — NWO Life2025, Closed Cycle
Insects on the Menu? is a video art installation developed in collaboration with entomologist Marcel Dicke as part of NWO Life2025, exploring insects as food through the cultural meanings attached to eating. Working with another visual artist, I translated the research into a visual metaphor based on gummy worms: one of the most familiar Western sweets, whose name, shape and texture mimic the very insects being proposed as food.
The gummy worm becomes the protagonist of a stop-motion journey through the processes of food production and consumption, moving between the different stages through which food becomes culturally recognised, prepared and eaten. Pedestrian interviews further introduce everyday perceptions and associations around eating and insects.
By placing a recognisable confectionery object between the categories of “candy” and “insect”, the installation plays with cultural norms of eating and the paradoxes through which food becomes acceptable, desirable or strange.