I am interested in possibility of the experimental subject becoming an active participant in the creation of a work. The series of paintings in shared labour involved silkworms as collaborators in its creation. As part of the work I raisied two generations of silworms with the intention of weaving canvases from the silk that would result from this process. I modified the traditional way of creating silk and allowed the silkworm to complete its transformation into a moth and hatch out of its cocoon. Traditionally the cocoons are boiled prior to the moth hatching. By modifying the process the moth could hatch and propagate and fulfil being a moth. The modern domesticated silk moth can neither eat not fly, thousands of years of silk production have rendered these animals incapable of doing either, as they are commonly killed before hatching in order to prevent them from eating through their cocoons and thereby ruining the silk thread.   Essentially the moths are failures; the only action left for those allowed to survive is to mate, ensuring the survival of the next generation

Painted on these canvases are portraits of the silkworms themselves.