Liss Fenwick

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

book remains/termite nest, photographs

2021-ongoing

These book remains are what’s left after a termite colony chews, digests and deposits these English language books underground on the rural block I grew up on in the (so-called) ‘Northern Territory.’ 

In this work spanning several years, the iconic human knowledge-source becomes food-source for Mastotermes Darwinensis, the giant northern termite. 

I began working with this termite colony when they started eating my late father’s shed. I fed them his books. His collection was strongly influenced by his rural QLD upbringing and his view of ‘progress’ in the colony. I expanded the termites diet to include other books related to the worldview of our human colony on still remains Larrakia land. 

Termites are widely poisoned, as the mischievous insects are known to surreptitiously undermine a whole structure. Through this work I imagine both ‘living’ and ‘future’ unmoored from the problematic supremacy of Euro- and anthropo-centric knowledge systems.