Moorhead Artist Traps Trump Admin’s Corruption in Jars, Calls It “Bottled Hell”

In a quiet basement in Moorhead, Minnesota, artist Lana Suomala has created a striking visual protest against the Trump administration’s ongoing abuses of power. Instead of traditional preserves, her pantry shelves hold 42 jars—each containing a grotesque insect hybrid representing a key figure from the Trump era. This unusual art project, launched amid the ICE occupation of Minneapolis and the deadly shooting of Renee Good, is a physical embodiment of the administration’s cruelty and chaos.

Suomala’s first jar featured former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, but the project quickly expanded as she grappled with the relentless shock tactics and authoritarian overreach defining the administration. “Memes are too fast,” she explained. “Jarring them this way helped me to hold it a little longer in something tangible.” Her partner Mark Schutz summed it up bluntly: “You’ve bottled hell.”

Each jar is a scathing caricature. Interior Secretary and ex-North Dakota governor Doug Burgum rides a grasshopper wearing a cowboy hat with the caption “Saddle up, Dougie.” FBI Director Kash Patel is a beer-guzzling cockroach, a nod to his infamous post-Olympic locker room antics. Melania Trump appears as a hornet dubbed “a visionary,” while Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a caterpillar grimly proclaiming “I am the worm.” Trump himself is “The Lord of the Files,” referencing the Epstein scandal. Other jars contain insect versions of tech moguls Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg trapped in a sugar dispenser, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sealed in a liquor bottle, highlighting his public struggles with alcohol.

The exhibit’s title, “DO NOT OPEN!,” comes from a jar featuring a tarantula modeled on White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, a chilling warning against unleashing more harm. Several jars honor victims of the administration’s brutal immigration enforcement, including Renee Good and Alex Pretti, underscoring the deadly consequences of these policies.

Suomala, also a prop maker and printmaker, is hosting the DO NOT OPEN! art show at her Moorhead home on April 11. She hopes the installation slows down the endless news cycle’s rapid churn and sparks deeper reflection and action. “It gives us sort of a tangible thing, rather than being on our phones with the doomscrolling,” she said. “I also hope it’s a call to action, to keep voicing our concerns and grievances with our politicians, even if they keep disregarding it.”

This jar art is more than satire; it is a physical archive of the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on democracy and human rights. By trapping these figures as insects, Suomala forces us to confront the grotesque reality behind the headlines—and demands we refuse to look away.