Paussus (1981)

Resisting the binary essentialism of contemporary second-wave feminism, Bean's work points to a more complex celebration of being. Here, she draws on the ecstatic yet troubling inter relationship of a small beetle and its ant hosts, where the beetles secrete a substance that is greedily licked up by the ants to suppress their usual aggression, meaning they can be torn apart by the beetle whilst still submitting themselves to it.