Laurence Kubski
Crickets Stories of Chinese Insect Pets (2019-2020)
Laurence Kubski
Crickets Stories of Chinese Insect Pets 2019 – 2020
The series deals with a thousand-year-old tradition in China: raising crickets to hear them ‘sing’ or to involve them in tiny fights. Laurence Kubski spent weeks scouring the largest insect markets throughout China. She followed cricket hunters into the darkness of remote cornfields in Shandong province and met mafia members paying millions of yuan for crickets for illegal fights. Immersed in this tradition, she learned the symbolism of flowers in traditional Chinese painting to compose her still lifes. She went for a walk in the streets of Shanghai – as amateurs traditionally do – with a singing cricket in her pocket.
Born in 1986 in Switzerland, Laurence Kubski graduated in Art Direction (MA) and Graphic Design (BA) from the University of Art and Design in Lausanne. She focuses her artistic work on the way people interact with animals in different cultures. The book Crickets was published by Simonett & Baer in 2020.