Arabel Lebrusan

Custody of the Fragile

Year: 2026

Medium: Group. Organic matter (bumblebee, flying beetle and other insects), silver coating.

Dimensions: 2cm x 1cm approx each

 

Custody of the Fragile is made from dried found insects, electroformed in silver. Each creature is real, already dead when gathered. Through electroforming, a skin of silver is grown slowly over the body, the wings, the legs, until the form is entirely encased. Every hair, every vein, every torn edge of a wing is held. Nothing is idealised.

“Thus the minuscule, a narrow gate, opens up an entire world.” Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space.

The work asks for close attention. Laid on a windowsill rather than raised on a podium, the scale stays true to life. Silver and preservation usually serve grandeur. Here they serve the opposite: the small, the overlooked, the already gone.

Custody of the Fragile sits within a practice concerned with loss, and the refusal to look away from it.