At home with the Locust People (Itchy feet)

Since the early 1970s, Bonita Ely's work has explored cultural histories and human interaction with the natural world, focusing in particular on themes of environmental degradation. She produced 'At home with the Locust People (Itchy feet)' 1974-75 at a time when pollution and population were prominent issues. The central figures are mutant hybrids of human and locust anatomies. These vulgar creatures embrace precariously in a domestic setting, a gesture that conflates human behaviour with the 'gregarious phase' of locusts, in which they congregate into rapacious, mass-reproducing swarms with disastrous impacts on land fertility. Correspondingly, the view out the window beyond is bleak: a vast, unpopulated expanse which smoulders an ominous dirty-amber. The work is a cynical prediction of future environmental devastation, in which humans are both the victim and perpetrator.