Monumento a una mariposa (Monument to a Butterfly) is a series of drawings and paintings where geometry takes the place of gender and species binarisms in regard to the life cycle of the Argentinean flag butterfly, known in Uruguay as the Coronillas butterfly. Visual manifestations of the transformations these flying insects undergo, from egg to caterpillar, from caterpillar to pupa and from pupa to butterfly, and of their passage from individuality to grouping together during the caterpillar stage, bring us closer to manners of gestating life which, for our urban imagination, verge on the fantastic. In this series, mutation imagery operates as a way of drawing us closer to what we have been taught to reject: the ugly, different or monstrous. 

Ad’s anti-adult geometricization, on the other hand, constructs shapes for an empathy able to bypass the reflex reaction of repulsion. While butterflies are a universal symbol of beauty, caterpillars represent the extreme opposite, the non-human: an absolute otherness that provokes fear, disgust and even extreme violence. In the Argentinean flag butterfly’s life cycle, Minoliti finds a visual and affective void that offers a possible approach to forms of non-humanness and of empathizing not only with their colors and shapes, but with the totality of their ways of life. A coronillo tree, one that provides nourishment for this subspecies of butterfly—and after which it is named in Uruguay—was planted in the gallery garden. The ceramic plaque modeled by Cecilia to accompany it recognizes the need to rethink our connection with the environments around us, to develop empathy and solidarity, not just with butterflies, but also with all the insects that pester us, bite us and repel us, but are, nevertheless, essential in order for life on Earth to continue. For now, and while it grows, the little tree functions as a symbol, it is the sprouting of a monument that will one day be habitat.

Excerpt from a text by Sofía Dourron.

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