The Swiss artist and writer studies a place at beetle height.
In 2023, Samuel Herzog developed a novel concept for mapping the Sequerciani—the area surrounding the winery of the same name in southern Tuscany. He constructed a device that allowed him to translate the movements of a beetle into movements of his own body. With the help of this «compass», he let himself be guided by twenty local Scarabaeinae beetles to twenty different points in the garden. At each location, he sat for an hour, always with the sun at his back. He took a photo of the view and noted down what he experienced. The aim of this undertaking was to create a description of the Sequerciani whose character was significantly shaped by the landscape itself. For it was non-human nature that led the artist to the various perspectives of the garden, which he then attempted to interpret using human means. Since it was the beetles who determined where Herzog would pull out his pencil—and thus, in a sense, wrote with him—he called the project Scarabeografia.
Samuel Herzog (born 1966 in Basel) operates at the intersection of art, literature, and journalism. He writes about his travels, explores culinary topics, and engages in transmedia projects such as the fictional island of Lemusa, whose culture he has been presenting in museums, books, and online since 2001.
