Gail Ashton

Gail Ashton is a visual artist whose practice investigates and confronts the dichotomous relationships between insects and humans. Her work foregrounds the ecological relationships that have shaped biodiversity for millions of years, while also confronting the contemporary threats posed by habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. 

Central to her practice is a desire to shift anthropocentric narratives around insects and invertebrates, encouraging viewers to see these often-maligned creatures not as nuisances, but as equals in our shared ecosystems. By challenging fear and indifference, her work seeks to foster empathy, engagement, and a renewed sense of accountability toward the non-human lives with whom we coexist. 

‘Diapause’ examines a naturally-occurring process which – like photography – is governed by light, time, and temperature. Diapause is a stage-specific period of arrest, undertaken by insects, to survive unfavourable seasons. Often thought of as a complete arrest of biological functioning; it is more of a ’slowing’ of function, and often facilitates biological and morphological change, for example as a pupal stage between larva and adult. 

Seeing this diapausal state as analogous to the pseudo-diapausal state in which she finds herself during the coldest, darkest months, Gail uses Polaroid photographs to embrace uncertainty and collaboration with natural forces, rendering the invisible visible and giving form to the imperceptible processes that define both insect life and artistic transformation. Her film offers viewers an experiential lens into diapause as both a biological and emotional phenomenon – one that connects us more deeply to the insect world and the cycles we all share.