Noxious/Native Dinner Party

In a big box store, in the check-out lane, I stared at home decorating magazine cover that advertised “dozens of tablescapes.” What a time of excess and decadence that we live in, where the surfaces of our tables are something to be “scaped” and the food is secondary to its artful presentation. I wondered how this could be used to illustrate something crucial in our actual landscape. China patterns are such an interesting novelty; so reflective of colonialist ideas, with different patterns reflecting the wealth and status of those procuring them. Most of our invasive species were introduced out of that same desire for things discovered while on tour abroad and considered ornamental or exotic, whether directly or indirectly, such as what happens when certain insects were accidentally crated with the goods and brought across the world to be released into an ecosystem that wasn’t built for them. We blame them for the diminishment of our own native species and they’re written about as though they were monsters. They’re subjected to cruel forms of population control when they’re only doing as we do: blooming where they’re planted, populating and spreading themselves very well, consuming at a pace faster than can be replenished by nature herself.

This is an in-progress project with the vision of having two complementary pieces of a table setting: native species of flora and fauna and a comparable invasive species that is directly affecting their population, whether due to being eaten, attacked, or crowded out.