The origin story of State Library’s iconic Christmas beetles

Ever wondered about the colony of copper Christmas beetles that lands on State Library of Queensland each festive season? 

When State Library expanded to twice its former size in 2006 – incorporating a new structure and a fifth level – it ran a Season’s Greetings competition to find a distinctively Queensland holiday decoration befitting the redeveloped building.   

Elishia Whitchurch, a student at the Queensland College of Art, came up with the winning concept. Elishia’s public artwork has endured as a State Library tradition for the past 20 festive seasons and, as principal at Urban Art Projects (UAP) in Brisbane, she has built a career helping artists bring their public artworks from concept to reality. 

Beetlemania in the ’burbs   

Elishia was an admirer of the architecture of the building, for which Donovan Hill Peddle Thorp received the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ 2007 Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture. 

The Brisbane-raised designer brainstormed with her Welsh partner when looking for a uniquely ‘Queensland’ concept for the 2006 competition. ‘He said to me, “You know what I noticed when I came to Australia was Christmas beetles.” He recalled his dogs always trying to eat them. I also recalled all these stories about Christmas beetles from when I was a kid. They were always stuck to the screen door at my grandma's house and I remember picking them off. They would get stuck in your hair.’  

Elishia remembers the excitement of winning the State Library competition and bringing the beetles to life with Tony Powell of Planet Productions. ‘I was ecstatic. To have the works on such a significant cultural institution was just huge,’ she says.  

‘It was a great opportunity for me as a student to work with Tony. I remember going out to his workshop and he panel-beat them himself, then annealed them – hit them with the blow torch – to create those colors you see in the copper. It confirmed my interest in that more bespoke method of manufacturing and hands-on craft ... so it kind of led me on that path.’ 

Help save the Christmas beetle 

While State Library’s Christmas beetle collection has grown to over 100 since Elishia created the original 30, sightings of the real thing have been in decline. She is encouraging Queenslanders to join efforts to track the declining Christmas beetle population.  

The University of Sydney and Invertebrates Australia are recruiting citizen scientists for the Christmas beetle count project. ‘They're asking citizens to, when they see Christmas beetles, take photos of them and send them in using a website called iNaturalist so they can start to track and understand why the numbers are in decline,’ Elishia says. 

Christmas beetle larvae feed on the roots of native grasses and adults on gum leaves. The beetles are most active in December and January.   

‘There are 35 different species of Christmas beetles. Some of them are quite iridescent and some of them are quite brown, she says.

‘It would be wonderful if this artwork could be part of the awareness and conservation of Christmas beetles through people taking photos of them so scientists can understand more about why they’re in decline.'

A career in public art  

Elishia began her career as a designer before going on to manage Queensland-grown firm UAP’s design studios in Shanghai and then Brisbane. ‘I get to work with lots of artists, which I really love,’ she says.  

‘I work with artists at the front end of their projects to help them work out how they're going to build it, what materials they might use, what's feasible. The advice I'm providing is aligned with what they're trying to do conceptually. 

‘Judy Watson was the first artist UAP worked with, in 1994, and we still make some of her work today.’ 

Elishia’s recent projects include GOMA’s popular new play sculpture, The Big Hose, by contemporary artists Tony Albert (Brisbane, Girramay/Yidinyji/ Kuku Yalanji peoples) and Nell (Sydney), and Being Swallowed by the Milky Way, Lindy Lee’s 8 m-high 8,000kg bronze sculpture at the entrance to the Queen’s Wharf precinct. 

Another career highlight was working with British artist Idris Khan on Wahat al Karama (Oasis of Dignity), a war memorial in Abu Dhabi. The monument – a series of cast aluminum tablets up to 35 m tall, extending over a distance of 50 m and intertwined with a water feature – opened in 2016. ‘The artist worked with the Ministry of Culture to cast poetry into the faces of the tablets. That was a big project, and one I really enjoyed working on,’ she says. 

Making it our own 

Elishia is happy the library community has embraced her own seasonal public artwork. 

‘One of the beautiful things about public art is that the community engages with it and takes ownership,’ she says. ‘It becomes a story about them. They identify with the stories. It becomes part of that collective identity.  

‘I think one of the marks of a successful public artwork is when the community takes it on board and adopts it, is protective of it and loves it. I don't think I quite realised how the Christmas beetles would connect with people because it was just my personal memory at the time. But obviously my personal memory resonates with other Queenslanders.’  

Summer at State Library: see what’s on

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Christmas in Queensland: explore our collections 

Take a self-guided exhibition and public art tour of State Library 

Inside the creative process: the James C Sourris AM collection of artist interviews