Project by Minjae Kim, I Fu Chang
New Yorkers have been advised to kill the Spotted Lanternfly, a so-called invasive species, on sight. Sweet Negotiations refuses military metaphors of eradication and control, and instead accepts the lanternfly as a permanent resident of the urban ecosystem. Rather than framing the insect as an enemy, the project investigates its ecological entanglements, particularly its unexpected relationship with another non-native species: the honeybee. By tracing how lanternfly honeydew becomes a shared resource, the project reveals emerging multispecies negotiations that challenge binaries of native versus invasive. In doing so, it imagines new forms of ecological balance and speculative urban agriculture—most notably, the cultivation of lanternfly honey as a byproduct of coexistence rather than domination.
