In response, Afrah created an artwork whose visuals might resonate with a truly global audience. The cuboid exterior of Where Do The Ants Go? takes inspiration from the voxel graphics of Minecraft and changes according to where it is being exhibited. At its opening in Dhaka, India, the ant hill’s exterior had the deep red hue of locally sourced clay; in Germany, architecture students helped create a grey render. This shifting facade was based on the idea of “taking something back to its basic modular unit and making it infinitely replicable,” says Afrah, who also emphasises the collaborative aspect of the piece. “People get together to make stuff in Minecraft. We’re translating that into the physical space,” she says.
Once participants step inside to Where Do The Ants Go?, they interact with a simulation of an ant colony (shown below), a Minecraft-esque melding of digital technology, multiplayer game , and the natural world. “You’re making a whole new world inside this virtual world, which sometimes is actually just a recreation of the world that you’re living in,” says Afrah. The artist is fascinated by the project BuildTheEarth which aims to create a 1:1 replicate of every building in Minecraft, an example, she says, of a “strange human need to escape this world, but recreate it, too”.