Lord of the Flies / 2021

 “Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.”

— William Golding, Lord of the Flies

This art object refers to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and emerged from reflections sparked by observing my children at play.

At one point, my son—who had always protected insects—suddenly decided to impale a dead fly on a skewer because “it was bad.” Shortly afterward, he organized a funeral for a bird because “it was good.”

In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the loss of innocence begins when a child starts to inflict harm on others and dispense their own form of justice. Watching my children, I felt that I was witnessing the very first moment of this transformation—the point at which such changes begin to take shape.

Description

The work is an installation consisting of a taxidermied bird, soil, and nine wires with flies attached. Each wire measures 50 cm in height, and the overall installation has a diameter of 40 cm.