Moorhead artist lampoons administration figures with jar art

Arts | April 10th, 2026

By Bryce Vincent Haugen

Deep in the basement of artist Lana Suomala’s 100-year-old house in downtown Moorhead, there’s a pantry with utility shelves filled with jars. But instead of containing pickles, beets or green beans, these jars contain art — Trump administration figures' faces attached to insect bodies, a message that mixes absurdity and seriousness.

The 42-jar project was launched in January during what Suomala calls “the ICE occupation of Minneapolis and the fear that it was coming here.” Particularly after Renee Good was gunned down in her SUV, Suomala felt the need to express her frustration with art. Her first jar depicted former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

“Then I just kept having ideas,” Suomala. “And I feel like this administration is like a reality TV show. They are very cruel and bombard us with constant things for shock value and worse. Memes are too fast …(Jarring) them this way helped me to hold it a little longer in something tangible.”

Her partner Mark Schutz put it succinctly: “You’ve bottled hell.”

One of the jars includes an insect Interior Secretary and former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum with a cowboy hat, riding a grasshopper, and a caption: “Saddle up, Dougie.” Another features a cockroach FBI director Kash Patel guzzling beer in a depiction of his actions in the locker room following the US Men’s Hockey Olympic gold medal victory. Then there’s the hornet Melania Trump, cheekily described as “a visionary” and a caterpillar Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. with a caption reading “I am the worm.” One features Trump as “The Lord of the Files” — an acknowledgement of Epstein — and another of former Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as a lollypop. Insect Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are contained within a sugar dispenser, while insect Secretary of Defense (and unofficially, War) Pete Hegseth is contained within a liquor bottle, a nod to his notorious relationship with alcohol.

The art installation’s name was inspired by the caption of a tarantula White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller that simply says “DO NOT OPEN.” A series of the jars is in honor of Good and Alex Pretti, the other victim of Operation Metro Surge’s immigration enforcement deadly violence.

“Instead of it being some super fast news cycle, (the jars) make you think about the implications of these figures for a moment,” Suomala said. “The goal is to process and think about it a little longer.”

Suomala, also a prop maker for Moorhead High Theater and a printmaker, is hosting a DO NOT OPEN! Art Show at her house at 207 9th St. S. in Moorhead on Saturday, April 11 from 7 to 9 p.m.

“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.”

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