Fragments of Flight

Fragments of Flight highlights the resilience of British butterflies and their shifting ecosystems, merging archival narratives with contemporary conservation science. Through observational fieldwork, photography, and printmaking, Gorman captures the unseen stages of butterfly life cycles, reframing them as vital indicators of environmental change. Her work invites audiences to engage with nature, not as a static display, but as an evolving, fragile system deserving of attention and care.

That early fascination with butterflies never left me. Decades later, I found myself drawn back into their world when I acquired an old collector’s cabinet during the pandemic. I am now reimagining the drawers as vibrant pieces of art that merge history, ecology, and conservation. In October 2024, I embarked on an art–science mentorship with Creature Conserve to develop Fragments of Flight: a project that transforms historical lepidoptera drawers into contemporary artworks. I want to fill the inside of the drawers with artworks that capture the ecological context of the insects across their entire life cycle across all four seasons. The butterflies will be “free,” artworks on the glass, often in flight, instead of pinned down inside of the drawer. The drawers will become frames, hung on the wall and open for all to see, instead of inside of a piece of furniture. By addressing 21st-century challenges such as habitat loss due to climate change, intensive farming, and urbanization, Fragments of Flight highlights British butterflies as both survivors and vital indicators of ecosystem health. These intricate, island–specialist species navigate remarkable life cycles across seasons, embodying resilience and fragility. Through this project, I aim to distill a century of scientific discovery into engaging visual narratives that inspire education and action among audiences across the UK.

Like many insects, butterflies can teach us a lot about their environment. Field research on butterfly transects revealed how climate change is causing earlier spring emergences, an insight I juxtaposed with archival traditions in my work. Victorian collections serve as both a historical touchstone and a counterpoint to modern ecological challenges. By contextualizing these collections, I aim to shift the narrative from the past’s focus on aesthetics to today’s pressing need for biodiversity preservation. My field research began in January 2025 with my hunt for Brown Hairstreak eggs in Regent’s Park, London. After confirming the species in 2024, we began 2025 with a citizen science effort to monitor its eggs. This included efforts to also plant more blackthorn: the butterfly’s host species for females to lay eggs and caterpillars to consume. I planted blackthorn and scoured branches at every notch and thorn, looking for elusive tiny eggs with a loop. I spotted the first one – a tiny raised dot, round, with a ridged surface – at the right height on a likely branch near the first blackthorn flowers. Only the size was smaller than expected, so the observation was noted as a “maybe–definitely something egg”. The final confirmation is pending macro-photography and a check by an experienced entomologist. For the first butterflying of the year, I was buoyed servation.

Just a couple of weeks later on a sunny Sunday I decided I could search for the caterpillars of the Purple Emperor. As a child, one of the first signs of my spring was the emergence of the pussy willows, known here as sallow and the host plant for the majestic Purple Emperor. Confident that I could spot a sallow and that caterpillars would be easier to find than eggs, I took the train down to Bookhams Common and spent the day in a search that ultimately failed to find anything. The bright winter sun did show me the bones of the forest, the highways of the adult male Emperors. Muddy, hungry, and happy, I left confident I’d spot the adults next time. Like the owner of my drawers, I’m caught again by the madness of butterflying, eager for the next encounter. These field observations not only reignited my childhood passion but also deepened my understanding of butterfly behavior – insights I now translate directly into my printmaking process. I sketch, take photos, and document landscapes in the field, later digitizing and refining them for my printmaking. All year, I will continue to visit butterfly habitats, ready to be surprised and building up the material I need for the artworks.

Fragments of Flight merges artistic techniques with ecological data to communicate complex scientific narratives. My approach to printmaking – placing butterflies on glass to “free them from their pins” – symbolizes the liberation of archival specimens into vibrant, living ecosystems. Layering digital and analogue elements, I integrate historical butterfly collections with modern field observations, creating visual stories grounded in both art and science. I am deep in research around the print layers, developing sources and inspiration from current papers, memoirs, and historical sources with more fieldwork.

By observing butterflies in their habitats, I connect ecological data with artistic storytelling. This commitment to place–based exploration informs the narratives within the drawers, tying each ecosystem to a lifecycle stage. As an exhibition, the curation will help bring the time and place to life. Winter habitat drawers, showing butterfly survival strategies, will sit in darker corners. For the treetop species, the drawers will be placed up high, recreating the challenge of catching a Purple Emperor in flight in his treetops. The spring and summer drawers will capture the species who inhabit the same ecosystems. As the drawers traditionally include tags that note the species name, its location, and other data collected, I include messages about population increase or decrease since 1981, when the UK introduced legislation essentially ending species capture traditional to the drawer..

This project invites audiences to see butterflies not merely as aesthetic wonders but as vital indicators of environmental health. By showcasing the entire lifecycle – across seasons, ecosystems, and plants – Fragments of Flight encourages a deeper appreciation of their ecological roles.

Part of the end–stage goals for the project is to engage audiences through community workshops to reinforce the importance of storytelling in conservation. It can live in multiple contexts and should be effective in bringing science to a gallery audience, art to a scientific space, and both to a community context. Connecting people to butterfly life cycles – particularly the less visible stages, such as caterpillars and overwintering eggs – will broaden their understanding of ecological balance. Butterflies act as both messengers and mediators, linking scientific observation with public awareness. Fragments of Flight also examines disruptors to the traditional butterfly narrative, adding depth and intrigue. The curiosity of the gentleman scientist who likely commissioned my drawers fostered the networks and exchanges of information which helped spur the evolution of natural history as a discipline. However, it was often an extractive practice, looking for the rare and the curious. The drawers also help tell these stories. The migrant species of the UK tell how ecological networks transcend borders just as the social networks of scientifi c societies that proliferated London fostered the exchange of ideas. Historical collections preserve genetic records of extinct species like the Large Copper. Each disruptor challenges audiences to rethink the narrative, blending art, history, and science to provoke critical reflection. By repurposing these archival pieces, I aim to shift their role from static collections to active conservation narratives.

Fragments of Flight is a call to action as much as it is an exploration of beauty and science. By reimagining historical butterfl y drawers, the project collapses centuries of ecological and artistic narratives into a format that invites curiosity, education, and engagement. The combination of fieldwork, conservation science, and artistic experimentation highlights not only the fragility of butterfl y habitats but also their resilience and adaptability. Through this work, I hope to connect audiences with the less visible, often overlooked lifecycles of butterflies, fostering a deeper appreciation for their ecological roles and a greater sense of urgency for conservation. As butterflies move between life stages, habitats, and even continents, so too does this project aim to bridge disciplines and audiences, inspiring both reflection and action in the face of 21st–century environmental challenges.

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The original pages

As published in Issue 4: Limitless. Click any page to view it full size.

First published in Issue 4: Limitless, the Innately Science newspaper.