Once, Australia was home to several species of dwarf emus. The last dwarf emu died 1822 in France, two decades after the rest of its kin were hunted to extinction back home by colonial settlers. This book uses cut-paper collage and AI-generated images to visualise the endling dwarf emus in… Read MorePage screen books
Me Vesus Dall.e: The uncanny story of the last dwarf emus was created as part of the Blurb Ambassador Program in 2023. Copies can be ordered via Blurb: au.blurb.com/b/11816235-me-versus-dall-e Once, Australia was home to several species of dwarf emus. The last dwarf emu died 1822 in… Read MoreExhibition
‘Persistent Table of Elements’ is a series of poetic visualisations which compare the quantities of radioactive elements plutonium and uranium released in the infamous atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 with the lesser-known nuclear tests at Maralinga, South Australia between 1955 and 1963. Between 1957–1963, the British government… Read MoreDesign
‘Persistent Table of Elements’ is a series of data collages comparing the quantities of radioactive elements plutonium and uranium released during the well-remembered atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, with the little-known ‘subcritical’ nuclear trials at Maralinga, South Australia. Between 1957–1963, the British government conducted 13… Read MoreWriting
In 2020, I wrote these book making briefs as ‘structured play’ for my honours students to help them think through making, and also shared them through the Australian Book Designers Association instagram site as a design version of ‘guided meditations’ during the loneliest (for many) phase of… Read MoreDesign
Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds is a collection of essays (written by international historians) and original visualisations (created by Katie Dean and myself) which explore the relationships among natural things – ranging from pollen in a gust of wind to a carnivorous pitcher plant to a shell-like skinned… Read MoreExhibition
Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy is set in a near-future post-apocalyptic age, in which anthropogenic climate change and bio-engineering have catastrophically altered the earth’s ecosystem and inhabitants. As Atwood tells it, humans are directly responsible for mass extinction of plant and animal species, and have unleashed genetically modified creatures… Read MoreExhibition
End Game, Part One: Possible Cost of Complacency is the result of conversations Todd McMillan and I had while tinkering in a research studio at UTS. Todd was pairing excerpts from science fiction with photographs taken on a recent trip to Antarctica, while I created collages based… Read MoreDesign
Jon Steiner’s short stories are unsettling but often laugh-out-loud funny. A reviewer wrote that this collection “manages to articulate last night’s forgotten dreams.” I used collage to convey a sense of Jon’s distinctive voice on the cover and scattered throughout the collection. Each collage features a photograph of Jon with… Read MoreExhibition
For about three years I made almost daily ‘visits’ to a troupe of wild monkeys in the Nagano region of Japan, via a live webcam that updates every minute. When I needed a moment of calm at the computer, I would tune into our primate cousins soaking in an… Read MoreDesign
Four covers designed for the Viva La Novella competition, run by the Seizure collective. Sponsored by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund, four emerging editors chose a novella each from the 150 entries, and work with their chosen author through ‘an intensive development and editorial process’. These four books are wildly different in… Read MorePage
Zoë Sadokierski is a designer, writer, creative producer and associate professor in Visual Communication at the UTS School of Design. Her practice-based research explores ways that visual communication – particularly illustrated nonfiction, data storytelling and anarchival collage – can be used to engage audiences with complex scientific… Read MoreWriting
(Another Book) After Ed-werd Rew-shay Written, illustrated and designed in one week by Zoë Sadokierski. Printed on the Espresso Book Machine in about 5 minutes, at McNally Jackson bookstore. 52 Prince Street, NYC. 68pp paperback, A5 (148 x 210mm) Mono interior, colour cover… Read MorePage screen books
Birds With Smutty Names presents 20 birds with names that prove ornithologists have a sense of humour, from the ‘Agile Tit-Tyrant’ to the ‘Moustached Flowerpiercer’. Each bird is illustrated using collaged pages from an erotic novel. The text from the novel that appears on the body of each bird directly… Read MoreWriting
The publisher’s blurb for Gabrielle Carey’s non-fiction Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and My Family: As her mother Joan lies dying, Gabrielle Carey writes a letter to Joan’s childhood friend, the reclusive novelist Randolph Stow. This letter sets in motion a literary pilgrimage that reveals long-buried family secrets. Read MorePage screen books
I made this little book as part of an ongoing collaboration with Tom Lee. Tom writes essays about body parts which I am turn into illustrated books – the first essays on Feet and Teeth were published as Analogue Bodies Vol. 1. As a challenge to myself, I decided to illustrate Tom’s… Read MoreDesign
Australian jeweller George Plionis’ first exhibition upon moving to NYC, titled ‘Mariposa’, was presented at Fitzgerald Jewelry, Brooklyn. The exhibition catalogue includes collaborations with fashion designer Timo Rissanen, ceramicist Andrew Robinson, photographer Mariano Garcia, stylist Ellen Schiavone Pande-Rolfsen and designer Zoë Sadokierski. I produced this series of collages in response… Read MoreExhibition
‘Words from the First Walk’ explores three different perspectives of the same walk at ‘Coorah’, a sixth generation family farm in central west New South Wales. Poet and essayist Tom Lee, whose ancestor William Lee first arrived in the district in 1818, led the walk. Two of Tom’s essays about… Read MorePage screen books
A book exploring a single passage from Murray Bail’s novel Eucalyptus, in which he compares a paragraph to a paddock. I responded to this passage using photographs, collage, and solar plate etching.The book presents a kind of text analysis – I’m exploring the ideas in Bail’s text by making images that… Read MorePage screen books
A travel narrative about my first trip to Tokyo in 2008 with my friend Kat, illustrated with sketches and collages from my travel diary: With Kat’s sense of direction and my ability to read colours, we managed to negotiate Tokyo’s subway system without incident for four days. Our social… Read MoreExhibition
This project is a collaboration with my colleague Kate Sweetapple, in which we recategorised real birds into new taxonomies based on patterns in their names. We spent the better part of a year reading through 31,500+ names in the International Ornithological Committee World Bird List, searching for bird names with… Read MoreDesign
Young Adult fiction is often dark and slightly twisted – unsurprising, when you think about what’s happening hormonally for this demographic. As a designer who illustrates, I get to create more playful, illustrative covers in the YA genre than in adult fiction or other genres. This is one of the… Read MorePage screen books
This book is one of a series of creative works that address the complex relationships writers have with their writing tools. This book is a visual response to Tom Robbins’ novel Still Life with Woodpecker. Within the novel, the narrator interrupts his story with asides about his writing process. He begins:… Read MoreDesign
Two covers for Ursula Dubosarsky’s young adult novels. Dubosarsky’s writing is mysterious, enchanting and deeply affecting. I used a combination of hand-generated textures (created with pastels, turps-release prints, charcoal) and digital collage to create etherial and dreamlike covers. Read More
