Sennen ki (Mitoku-san). 2025 woodblock print.
The Heron and the Sake (how do you live?) honourable mention @ Awagami International Mini Print exhibition 2025.
Based in Tokushima, Japan’s foremost washi manufacturer for centuries is now under the 7th generation master papermaker.
Announced during Nature Book week, When the World Was Soft received the Wilderness Society’s Karajia and Environment award for Children’s Literature.
‘Excellently laid out and a wondrous connection of art & literacy.’
Thank you to Blak Douglas and all the judges for the comments and recognition.
When the World Was Soft brings Yindjibarndi creation stories to the page in a way that honours both tradition and innovation. These are stories from a strong Law area in the Pilbara, where the right way to tell, share and hold stories has been carefully considered. Told through the collective voice of the Juluwarlu Group Aboriginal Corporation, the language moves between poetic cadence and sharp clarity, holding on to the rhythms of oral storytelling while making space for readers unfamiliar with its forms.
The graphic novel format works as an extension of how these stories have always been told — layered, dynamic and deeply relational. Conversations shift across time, moving between human and more-than human voices, reinforcing that creation stories are not distant myths but part of the present. Rather than translating these stories into a Western literary mould, the book shapes itself around the cultural, linguistic and philosophical frameworks from which they emerge.
When the World Was Soft
Jan 2025 review
@ NGV Australia, NGV Main, Readings..
all over Melbourne and beyond..
Interview with Andrew Mueller about When the World was Soft, for a Foreign Desk episode examining Indigenous political soft power. Honoured to follow the excellent Maori MP Maipi-Clarke LIsten here.
Sample from online journal commission. Lonely Swedish troll seeks bff in Tohoku and Tokyo. Ghibli-ish storytelling for Gen Z seemed to ask for a similar visual treatment. With respect. Never to Leave this Land
Kyoto Journal 108 Fluidity 2 out soon.
Kitty @ 50, OG Mario’s vertical challenge – and many more erudite and not so explorations from culture and society past and present..
As always a visual thought-provoking deep dive.
