Antoine Chesnais & Vanessa Holyoak: Winged Bait

In Winged Bait, triangular resin casts mimic the shape of butterfly wings, enclosing images and text sourced from the Internet — fragmented photographs of monarchs, articles alerting readers to the butterflies’ endangered status and precarious ecological position. The “wings” hang suspended by fishing hooks from noose-like wooden structures emerging from potted Grevillea, or spider flowers, a plant known for attracting the monarchs when their flowers blossom in spring. At first glance, this garden might appear as a sanctuary for butterflies, an urban micro-habitat — but look deeper, and this is no safe haven: toxic cyan water spills from spiraling garden hoses into the butterflies’ gentle host plants, leaking a destructive irrigation. Trapped as if in amber, their images are ossified, neoliberal calls to action cemented into clickbait.