Zygaena afghana: Involuntary Departure from Afghanistan

Zygaena afghana: Involuntary Departure from Afghanistan
Installation by Teresa Chen

This work explores the intertwining of scientific collecting, colonial history and forced migration. It focuses on a moth - Zygaena afghana - that was caught in Kabul on September 6, 1972 and later became part of the entomological collection at ETH Zurich. This collection is one of the most important of its kind in Europe.
The butterfly did not leave Afghanistan of its own free will. It symbolizes a practice in which collecting nature was an expression of power, ownership and control. Such collections reflect a colonial perspective: the foreign was classified, preserved and exhibited - as a sign of status and knowledge.
One picture shows the scientifically prepared insect - motionless, categorized, impaled. A second picture shows the same butterfly, this time seemingly flying freely through a blue sky - despite the needle in its body. An illusion of freedom - beyond science, back to nature.
Today, the people who leave Afghanistan involuntarily are in a completely different situation. Their flight is not archived or preserved, but often overlooked, suppressed or rejected. While an insect from Kabul is protected and cataloged, human destinies often remain invisible


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.