Who would have thought moldy fruit, decomposing carcasses and bugs could be seen as beautiful?

 In his new film, Wrought, Joel Penner, an artist and filmmaker in Winnipeg explores decomposition as art.

The videographer, whose footage can be seen in National Geographic's, One Strange Rock on Netflix, started out his practice in the neighborhood where he grew up, the West End of Winnipeg.

"In the West End there is a lot of scenes of urban decay," says Penner explaining how he first became interested in the subject.

Penner started using photography to highlight different perspectives of "looking for beauty in unexpected places," the unexpected place being, death and decay.

Penner explained he captures imagery of decay in his basement studio as well as in a heated shed that helps speed up the decaying process.

Through his new short film, Wrought, Penner and his partner, Anna Sigrithur want to showcase time-lapse imagery of the beauty of decay through molding fruit, roadkill being eaten by beetles and many other seemings 'gross' objects.

The goal of the project is to "overall look at the role of humans in the web of life and how there has been this idea in society for a long time that humans are on the top." Penner and Sigrithur want to "de-center ourselves" and remind us of our role in life as not 'better than'.

Penner also said, "I don't have an explicit environmental message but I hope that showing scenes of the natural will get people excited about conservation."

Penner has many exciting projects coming up including a film on insects that he received a Canada Council for the Arts Research Grant for focusing on the artistic possibilities of studying insects and the 'hive mind'.