Suburban Symbiosis: Insectum Domesticus

by Daniel Kariko

Insects find a way into our homes no matter how vigilant we are in our effort to keep nature on the outer side of our windowpanes. During my inquiry into suburban experience, I started recording the indoor wildlife consistent with the environment my subdivision occupies. 

These little (and sometimes not so little) invaders are natural products of our own occupation of their habitat. As we keep expanding our subdivisions to the outskirts of towns, we inhabit recently altered environments. In general, I study environmental and political aspects of landscape, use of land, and cultural interpretation of inhabited space. This anthropomorphic presentation of our closest, often invisible, co-habitants in a humorous, quasi-scientific way, is an invitation to consider the evidence of the human impact on the landscape as we constantly redraw boundaries between us and the natural environment.

Insects I photograph are found during my daily routines, either at home, or at work, and are titled after an unspecified location, and a partial date, further hinting on a scientific specimen presentation device. These Images are meant to be portraits of our often-overlooked housemates. 

Daniel Kariko is an Assistant Professor of Fine Art Photography and Photography Area Coordinator in School of Fine Arts and Design at East Carolina University, in Greenville, North Carolina.

Kariko’s work has been shown nationally and internationally in galleries and museums including: Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL; Museum of Florida History, Tallahassee, FL; Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia; Rijeka Foto Festival, Croatia; Fries Museum, in the Netherlands; Festival della Scienza di Verona, Italy; Royal Albert Hall, London, UK; ArtCell Gallery, Cambridge, UK; and Galata Museo del Mare, Genova, Italy.

After emigrating from his native Yugoslavia to USA, Kariko received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana and his Masters of Fine Arts from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona in studio arts with a concentration in photography. From 2002 until 2010 Kariko served as a faculty at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. 

From the Editor

Thank you Daniel Kariko for calling these portraits. I think this helps me look at them less like specimens when you use that language. He’s right, they are portraits, and they toggle between being humorous and disturbing. After looking at these images, it’s no wonder so many sci-fi movies and books tailer their aliens after insects like these. They’re unsettling, yet completely normal. Their existence is even unnoticeable most of the time until your young kid finds one of them crawling around the tub and it becomes a mini-event. I love that the colors and poses in these images lend to a narrative about the personality of the creatures, or maybe it’s just my natural habit to see human personification. Either way, it’s a visual treat that bridges the gap between real science and sci-fi with a dash of creepy humor thrown in.

I met Kariko in person at Click Photography Festival a few years back and it was a pleasure to see this work in print. To see this work in print yourself I suggest taking a look at his new book Aliens Among Us published by Liveright. Cheers to Daniel for the accomplishment and sharing his work with us.

–Blue Mitchell