Make:

"God's creatures"? Do you have the authority to assume God's will? Also consider that God gave man authority over the Earth in Genesis and that many theologians have argued that the lord put animals on Earth for man to use. The artist commissioned for this work makes it clear in his interview that he is a man of God himself. I would be wary of trying to use religion to argue that the use of these insects is immoral.

I also would not use "consumerism" to describe this work. Maybe I'm wrong but usually consumerism refers to the consumption of consumer goods in excess of society's needs.

That off my chest, killing millions of beetles is something that I do not feel comfortable with, I just think that your post really made some serious errors. Nevertheless, we aren't quite sure how the shells were obtained, maybe they weren't killed inhumanely or even killed at all. The interview with Fabre suggests that these were obtained from various existing collections from universities and perhaps that some shells were the leftovers of some exotic meals. Unless you are a vegetarian who wishes the fate of slaughtered animals upon people in that business, I would point out the hypocrisy of someone who is disgusted by the deaths of common beetles and yet happily eats meat regularly. Finally we aren't even sure if they were killed. These beetles only have a lifespan of one/two days up to two weeks, so for all we know the artist used beetles that died of old age.

According to the interview, Fabre commonly uses themes of death, so maybe the intention of this piece is to evoke conflicting feelings about the horror and beauty of death.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal

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