Creepy-crawlies these are not: insects are the bejeweled stars of Jennifer Angus's new solo exhibition, Jennifer Angus: The Golden Hour. Instead, the six-legged creatures-posed in mesmerizing displays-speak of another kind of horror: impending man-made destruction.
The exhibition's name is a reference to the final hours of twilight, when the disappearing rays bathe the earth in a warm, golden glow. Angus parallels this with the Doomsday Clock, symbolizing the likelihood of man-made catastrophe. "Angus proposes that the life we currently enjoy on this planet is in its golden hour, beautiful yet rapidly vanishing," according to the website of the Bruce Museum, where the exhibition is mounted. "Never before have so many unique ecosystems been open to exploration, yet neither have they ever been more threatened by deforestation and climate change. Angus warns us that should the insects that form the fabric of her exhibition vanish, we would be left not only without their beauty but also without life itself: more than three-quarters of the world's food crops are pollinated by insects."
The insects do more than just pollinate in The Golden Hour. In the first of three rooms, insects are posed in dioramas, submerged in jelly-filled jars, and pinned to the wall. Elevated houses, meant to make viewers feel insect-sized, flank a main thoroughfare leading to a small church.
Angus describes the next room as a "cabinet of curiosities." It is filled with drawers containing even more dioramas "in which insects work, explore & worship." One of the characters in the room is the Cicada Lady made using a cicada head, grasshopper arms, and a beeswax body.
Shocking pink walls decorated by insects surround visitors once they enter the third room. On one side is a cabinet with perched birds. The centerpiece, however, is a dinner party where stuffed animals-including a sooty albatross, a barn owl and a white-tailed deer, all from the Bruce Museum's collection-discuss how they can "halt the precipitous decline of global ecosystems."
Covering 4,500 sq. feet, The Golden Hour is Angus' largest exhibition to date, and can be seen at the Bruce Museum's Changing Art Gallery until Sept. 8.
