Womb/Tomb/BooM: Trans Studies Quarterly

July 2024

Womb/Tomb/BooM is a multisensory, trans-ecological art installation that invites human visitors to share space, air, and flesh with styrofoam-metabolizing beetle larvae and the plastic waste they inhabit and consume. Wherever possible, barriers between human, insect, and plastic have been removed to create a shared sensory wormspace of metamorphosis-friendly light, sound, and material. Where those barriers could not be removed, the barriers themselves become key actors in the space, frustrating the cisgender gaze's desire for a good-hard look at these shape-shifting insects and structuring the ways that humans can and cannot move through the space.