A Beautiful Cockroach is a newly commissioned installation by multimedia artist and performer Maja Simišić, created for Dutch, More or Less #5 at the Nieuwe Instituut. The project centres on a main video work, accompanied by a spatial installation.


Simišić reveals how artists with a migration background often must navigate a near-Kafkaesque trajectory before being formally recognised as Dutch, and how Dutchness emerges from an absurd interplay of migration systems, bureaucracy, and identity politics. Using kitsch interfaces, slick branding, and seductive surfaces, she constructs an installation that first attracts and then unsettles the visitor. At its centre is the cockroach, acting as a guide through oppressive structures and shifting forms of identity, survival, and adaptation.

Written by Delany Boutkan

Exhibition photos by Petra van der Ree