The cockroaches are a metaphor for racism that is prevalent in society today.

Challenging the aspects of racism by judging the surface appearance as we look different, but we are actually the same.

Subverting notions of racism by juxtaposing cockroaches, a widely considered ‘pest’ and gold as a material. Doing so highlights a value in something that is pre-conceived to be a problem. 

The repetition casting off dead roaches are to dilute the amount of precious metal when casting the roaches in order to do something that would be considered net of values as old ideas being passed down from the history of traditional patina processes.

We usually associate cockroaches with mess, but Chris has displayed the roaches in a clean, tidy museum context, highlighting the importance of seeing each cockroach as an individual.