[Diploma project carried out in the Editorial Graphics Studio of Dr. Marek Knap at the Graphics Faculty of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (supervision: Prof. Lech Majewski).]
Holobiont is an anthology of texts that analyze complex human-nature relationship from various points of view. The word used in the title denotes a living creature that consists of a multitude of smaller organisms cooperating with each other.
The intellectual foundation of the project is rooted in the philosophy of “Dark Ecology” by Timothy Morton. Morton says you should reject the romantic concept of nature and accept its dark, disturbing, and sometimes disgusting face. It also entails an uncomfortable shift in thinking about a human being and our place in the world.
The illustrations refer stylistically to both scientific drawings and blurred images from under a microscope. In the process of creating the publication, the author also used disgusting photographs of guts from veterinary archives. The idea is to focus on the contrast arising from the clash of well-ordered block typography with organic illustrations and create space for a meeting between an encyclopedia of natural history and a countercultural zine.
Zuzanna Wołejko
Illustrator and graphic designer born in 1994 in Warsaw. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and at l'École de Communication Visuelle in Aix-en-Provence. She collaborated with the Biology Department of the University of Warsaw and the University Botanical Garden in creating educational and cultural projects. Co-founder of the MYKO project - a space in Warsaw's Jazdów to popularize knowledge about the kingdom of fungi. For years she has been illustrating for literary magazines such as "Small Format" and "Visions". She is fascinated by speculative biology and scientific nature illustration.