After the Molt
"After the Molt" emerged from a residency at the Museum of the Southwest, where I encountered a cricket in the sandhills of West Texas just after it shed its exoskeleton, a moment of profound delicacy, temporary invisibility, and exposure. I filmed this phase as the cricket, soft and pale, instinctively buried itself in the sand searching for protection while its structure hardened, its vulnerability both shielding and isolating in a landscape not built for such softness.
The work considers the experience of time across different lifeworlds. How time is stretched and shortened depending on subjective perception. The phase of tenderness is brief; soon, the cricket re-enters the world, armored. This cyclical rhythm echoes broader currents in my work: metamorphosis, adaptation, and the ways fragile bodies navigate cycles of shelter, emergence, and care. "After the Molt" invites reflection on the tension between invisibility as survival and the desire to be seen, turning the cricket’s act into a meditation on how all living beings seek refuge and recognition when most exposed.
The work considers the experience of time across different lifeworlds. How time is stretched and shortened depending on subjective perception. The phase of tenderness is brief; soon, the cricket re-enters the world, armored. This cyclical rhythm echoes broader currents in my work: metamorphosis, adaptation, and the ways fragile bodies navigate cycles of shelter, emergence, and care. "After the Molt" invites reflection on the tension between invisibility as survival and the desire to be seen, turning the cricket’s act into a meditation on how all living beings seek refuge and recognition when most exposed.