Karkynia
Interactive Installation (live simulation, aluminium pieces)
2026
Karkynia (Feminae crustacea glitchensis) is a chimeric goddess of human and crab embodiment. Her soft, pale, and many-breasted torso melts into the lower body of a crab, carapace molting into skin and skin into claws. Luminous as wet porcelain, she wears her glitches the way other goddesses wear crowns.
While her name echoes Karkinos, the giant crab Hera sent to distract Heracles in his fight against the Hydra in the swamps of Lerna, Karkynia is not a soldier sent to die in someone else's war but a calming, peaceful, and feminine force, armored yet gentle, strong yet at rest.
In the installation, Karkynia performs her peaceful ritual in the darklands of the in-between waters. Visitors are welcome, but gently. Any sudden movement disturbs her peace, and she answers with gut growls and the claw raps of ghost crabs defending their space.
Karkynia is one element of Menegon's evolving research project Becoming Chimeric. This iteration is both autonomous artwork and foundational fragment, a base element from which future versions will emerge and take form in other works. Glitched and chimeric by nature, she resists fixity and keeps becoming.
Sound design by Alexander Martin
Developed with the support of Artemis Gallery