POOR LITTLE BEETLE
since 2023, ongoing
various media
Poor Little Beetle is an ongoing body of work centred on the figure of the dung beetle and the fragile, persistent labour of making one’s way through the world. Its starting point is the Polish expression biedny żuczek — “poor little beetle” — used to describe someone clumsy, lost, vulnerable or deserving of compassion.
WORKS / MATERIAL STUDIES
The figure of the beetle becomes a way of thinking about the human condition: small in relation to the world, burdened by repetition and uncertainty, yet continuing to move. Like a Sisyphean creature, the dung beetle rolls its ball with relentless determination, performing a gesture that may appear purposeless from the outside but is nevertheless part of a larger ecology of transformation.
Through earth, buried and embroidered textiles, drawing, moving image and sculpture, the project explores labour, decomposition, fragility and persistence. Soil becomes both material and collaborator; surfaces are buried, altered and brought back into view, while insects appear as agents of decay and renewal.
Rather than seeking heroism in resistance to the absurd, Poor Little Beetle turns towards the anti-heroism of fragility. It asks whether meaning might emerge precisely through small, repetitive and often invisible gestures — and through the tenderness of continuing to shape something from earth.
more works from EARTH / DECOMPOSITION / UDERGROUND: