Traniello Lab member and Boston Area University Consortia student Isabella Arabia has an ant-inspired art installation schedule for her senior thesis exhibition. All are invited to attend!
Drawing inspiration from her research on leafcutter ants with Jordan Smith in the Traniello Lab and field studies on Atta cephalotes in Costa Rica, the installation Colony Subject X translates her science into an emotional experience, inviting audiences to reflect on their place within a vast, interconnected web of life. At the heart of the piece lies the question: how do we perceive other living beings, especially those that exist at the fringes of human attention?”
The piece includes macro-video footage of leafcutter ants, a soundscape recorded in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, and five oil paint insect portraits.The complex interplay of scale, sound, and moving image creates an immersive installation environment, blurring the line between observer and observed. Meanwhile, the circular framing of each element echoes scientific instruments (microscopes, lenses, e.g.) and evokes both planetary and ecological cycles.
Leafcutter ants are often seen as a faceless swarm—a collective ‘other’ rather than a series of individual beings. By enlarging the forms of five worker subcastes – “subjects” for her portraits, Isabella’s installation encourages a reconsideration of the arthropod/mammal divide.
Colony Subject X will be on view at the Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts (SMFA) in the Fenway between May 7-18, 2025. The work represents the culmination of Isabella’s interdisciplinary biology and fine arts degree program and passion for research in behavioral ecology.
Hope to see you there!
Click the links below for more information.
SMFA Website:
TUAG Website: