Liss Fenwick's Photobook The Colony Documents Termite-Consumed Books as Artistic Intervention

Artist Liss Fenwick has created a photobook titled The Colony, published by Perimeter Editions, which documents a multi-year project involving feeding books to a termite colony. The books, part of The Australians series by Vivian Stuart under the pen name William Stuart Long, were published between 1979 and 1990 and belonged to Fenwick's father, originating from their childhood home on Larrakia land in the Northern Territory. Fenwick describes these novels as 'settler fan fiction' that promoted heroic myths of Australian colonization. To prevent termites from damaging their family house, Fenwick collaborated with a local colony of Mastotermes Darwiniensis, or giant northern termites, by offering the volumes as an alternative food source. The insects consumed the books, transforming them into hollowed structures and soil, which Fenwick then photographed. The resulting images reveal intricate tunnels and scaffolds, highlighting organic processes over colonial control. Fenwick's work references the Borroloola library, established in 1919 with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, where termites had previously consumed a copy of The Imitation of Christ. The project explores themes of knowledge transformation, with termite mounds and book remnants mirroring each other as architectures shaped by collective intelligence. It critiques colonial narratives by allowing nonhuman agency to reshape authoritative texts, suggesting vulnerability and new possibilities. Fenwick grew up in Humpty Doo, surrounded by imported books that imposed external hierarchies, contrasting with enduring Aboriginal knowledge systems. The photographs serve as a witness to decay and regeneration, interrogating the book as a vessel of human authority.