Bed Bug Birthday Party

3D printed bed bugs, yellow birthday candle, white spray paint, plaster knuckle

2024

Insects have lived with us since sin. And while pests, we have a unique intimacy with them. Crawling, flying, buzzing, somersaulting around our lives and into our domestic spaces. Cramming into peepholes. Crawling in your cabinets. Floating up plumbing to your sink bowl, treading water, eventually landing sunbathing on your toothbrush. They have unique access to our private lives: almost familial, maybe even more familiar. They keep your secrets, poke at your leftovers, share your bedsheets, crawl on your skin, make you itch, taste your sweat, suck your blood. And, when we are conscious of our exoskeletoned kin, we can uncover a world of stories.

What imaginaries are shared-crossed species between those living within domestic spaces. At night – when the bed bugs bite – do they have dreams – and are they of my ashy toes? When they have birthday parties? What do they wish for before they bzzzzzzzzz?

My project explores these shared memories. It’s an exploration of domestic insect storytelling. Trying to understand insect perspectives in these shared spaces.

I'm drawn to synanthropic species. Organism that live in proximity with humans. And this video gives a good explanation of their relationship with humans. I want to specifically focus on bed bugs, which co-reside with us in our most intimate places: our bedding. I also want to focus on dreams, myths, ghosts stories that these bugs share. If my bed is the earth, If my body were a continent, my bedsheets a vast ocean, where do demons play? I want to draw parallels between our stories and theirs.

Tobi Aina