Bags of Stories: Thinking with Household Casebearers in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Household casebearers are a genus of moths primarily distinguished by the spindle-shaped cases they carry and live in throughout their larval life. The cases, woven from household dust, typically comprise an array of materials from textile fibers to dead insect parts. As they thrive in domestic spaces in tropical climates, they are commonly viewed as a domestic pest. Anthropocentrism as such has led to a fundamental imbalance of knowledge concerning these creatures: we are more knowledgeable in their capacity for damage than we are in understanding how they live, even as we cohabit with them very closely, at home. In presenting a series of macro photography of their larval cases, this project invites readers to be attentive to the material and ecological entanglements on display on their intricate creations. The home is already a wilderness as household casebearers rebuild their houses from the dusty ruins of ours.