Spirits. Workers. Kin. (2024)

In the back of the exhibition space you see a small golden glimmering artwork, covered with images of insects. Spirits. Workers. Kin. (2024) exudes a sacred aura and draws upon Byzantine iconography, employing gold leaf to elevate simple beings—insects, fungi, microbes—into holy symbols. These “sacred insects” navigate the liminal space between life and death; through their invisible labor, they transform decay into growth, and death into life. Spirits. Workers. Kin invites us to reconsider our relationship with these small yet indispensable creatures. Are they pests or vital kin? Are they entities, or merely organisms?

Spirits. Workers. Kin. can be seen as a visual meditation on the sanctity of natural cycles, resonating with the words of Ursula K. Le Guin: “The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives.” With this small-scale, gilded tribute, Venus Jasper reminds us that even in decay, there is something sacred—and in the tiniest beings of life, a profound divinity.