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Photo Book Reviews

American Cockroach by Catherine Chalmers (Aperture) Reviewed by Tina Maas Cockroaches almost solely exist in dark, damp, and dirty environments.  In American Cockroach, photographer Catherine Chalmers presents them in human conditions, making the book okay even for those with entomophobia. Article rating: 6.87

American Cockroach presents three series of work by the American artist Catherine Chalmers. The book is a photographic documentation of her cockroach-infested miniature movie sets which are divided into three sections: Residents, Impostors and Executions.

In the first, cockroaches are photographed on miniature sets that resemble living rooms furnished with sofas, cream-colored carpets and sometimes even a miniature abstract expressionist painting. Presenting the cockroaches “out of proportion” almost as aliens from outer space seems an adequate analogy of the fears and overreactions that many people feel towards them. Emphasizing the unsettling aspect of scale in the work, a cockroach is shown crawling up a “dresser” where we can imagine it to be looking at its own reflection in the mirror. 

In the second section, the ‘roaches are photographed on beautiful flowers, “dressed up” in costumes to resemble other insects we generally perceive as cute and harmless. The images of the ‘roaches dressed up and made to look like “pretty” insects on flowers, question our instinctual revulsion to these creatures. In these photographs they not only appear harmless, but appear camouflaged as part of the gang of “good” insects populating our “benevolent natural world”: the bees, the butterflies and ladybirds we have been raised to revere, rather than representing the disturbing looking creatures from the underbelly of our culture.

Thus, the third chapter is very different from the first two: The images depict cockroaches being executed by the same devious devices we usually reserve for other humans. The miniature apparatuses in the sets are instantly recognizable and will evoke a plethora of emotions in most of us; we are shown cockroaches being put to death by electric chair, burning at the stake, hanging and drowning.  The title of the section precisely asserts its subject matter: Executions. It confronts the reader with a subject matter that is known to raise a fierce debate between those people who oppose and those who sanction the death penalty.

Images of cockroaches ultimately inspire revulsion. After all, traditionally the cockroach is one of the most repulsive insects most of us can think of, despite their apparent harmlessness. With these images Chalmers continuously questions our revulsion and disgust, points out our shameful ignorance and draws attention to the social conditioning that created both. Chalmers asks whether it is “possible that a human-centric viewpoint is setting the stage for an impoverished environment.”  And whether our intense aversion to cockroaches reflects how far removed we are from our natural environment.

On the cover of the book a plain household cockroach is shown “hanged” like in a “public execution”. We are presented with the human style execution of a pest most people loathe and would willingly “sentence to death”. But presenting an animal pest in such a moralistic context is suggestive of more disconcerting questions than just the socio-ecological one.

The execution images throw the work into a very different light, a dark but ridiculous one. The picture of the ‘roach strapped to an electric chair is both hilarious and disturbing. The hilarity is provoked by the absurdity of the scene.  No one in their right mind would suggest going to all the trouble of strapping these insects to the chair, or placing a noose around their necks, as a way of eliminating cockroaches. For that we have far more efficient means of exterminating the masses.

“American Cockroach” manages to provoke uncomfortable questions regarding our own nature and behavior towards the “beloathed” cockroach by putting the animal in unfamiliar places and disguises, be it as super monsters, cute insects we adore or in the place of human prisoners. At the same time it raises the issue of what Chalmers calls “the aesthetics of our sympathies” by placing them in spaces we consider “clean” and “beautiful”. Deeply thought provoking.

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