Antworks is from "Leafcutters" series - a project that includes video, photography, drawing and sculpture.
Location: Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
Cast: Atta cephalotes and Atta colombica
Leafcutter ants usually cut green leaves from high in the forest canopy. In order to film the "Antworks" video, the heart of which is a stop-motion sequence of a colony stripping a tree, I needed to find a variety the ants were willing to take that was also on my scale. I offered them more than a dozen small trees and shrubs they are known to like and they refused them all, except this one. The aesthetics of the video were determined by the ants' choice. The pieces of leaves they cut looked like art, like tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings. It was art on parade across the forest floor. Who is to say leafcutter ants are indifferent to the aesthetics of the leaves they carefully select, cut and carry home?