Dear Reader,
We’re happy to bring you two new works recently published by the digital branch of Humans & Nature Press, including a silent paper-theater film by Zoë Sadokierski and Ceridwen Dovey of Animal Allegories and an essay by Kuai Shen on turning with the rhythm of rain ants in Sarayaku.
Collaborating as Animal Allegories, Zoë Sadokierski and Ceridwen Dovey craft experimental, visually surprising tales of animal entanglements. They share: “We know stories can’t save the world. But they can provide moments of respite, transporting us into an imaginative realm where future possibilities shimmer briefly into view.”
Zoë Sadokierski is a Sydney-based designer, writer, creative producer and Associate Professor at the UTS School of Design. Her artist’s books and works on paper have been exhibited and collected internationally. Zoë’s favorite animal is the weedy seadragon. Ceridwen Dovey is a fiction writer and essayist based in Sydney, Australia. She’s the author of several works of fiction (Blood Kin, Only the Animals, In the Garden of the Fugitives, Life After Truth) and non-fiction (On J.M. Coetzee: Writers on Writers and Inner Worlds Outer Spaces).
Kuai Shen is a transdisciplinary mediator of ant worlds. His practice-led research specializes in ants through technology-based performances that combine multispecies ethnography with decolonial tactics. He operates diverse electronic, audiovisual, and coding processes using transversal methods, such as weaving actions, to register ant behaviors and create data—and algorithmic-driven artworks.
Enjoy creative work from Animal Allegories and Kuai Shen below.
Also, stay tuned for a newsletter and social media posts announcing the theme for the 2025 Open Call for Humans & Nature Press Digital. The Center’s digital press accepts essays, poetry, and artworks.
Finally, below please find details about attending the online Elementals book club Vol. 2, Air with Point Reyes Books later this month as well as an in-person conversation with John Hausdoerffer and Gavin Van Horn at the PhotoVogue Festival in Milan next month.
Read this week’s full newsletter here.
Love,
Center for Humans & Nature
Image credit: Captives, by Animal Allegories
