The Cicada Hours

This collection was inspired by the incredible Magicicada, seventeen-year cicada, whose Brood X emerged in Spring 2021 all over the Midwest. I have always loved the idea of the cicada, living below ground for months—or in the Magicicada’s case, years—only to emerge and spend a too-short time bumbling and screaming above ground with us. It’s a story of resurrection—the kind of story we all desperately need in our 21st century world.

While the cicadas have been going through their strange cycle in 2020-2021, I have also been writing a new biography of the Kentucky artist, writer, and sustainability pioneer, Harlan Hubbard. He loved cicadas, too, and I will leave you with one of his incredible meditations on them (he, like many of us, called them “locusts” before we knew better):

“This is the year of the Seventeen Year locust, and should be somehow commemorated, for a few of these cycles span a man’s life […] When they come forth again, they will see changes in the face of the earth, hear new voices speaking of great events that we do not know of now.”

-Harlan Hubbard, June 1936

When the Magicicada of Brood X return to us in 2038, what will they see?

(The Cicada Hours was shown in conjunction with Heather R. Hill’s Blocked).