A Bestiary of the Anthropocene (2nd Edition)

A Bestiary of the Anthropocene is an illustrated compilation of hybrid creatures of our time, equally inspired by medieval bestiaries and observations of our damaged planet.

Designed as a field handbook, it aims at helping us observe, navigate and orientate into the increasingly artificial fabric of the world. Plastiglomerates, surveillance robot dogs, fordite, artificial grass, antenna trees, Sars-Covid-2, decapitated mountains, drone-fighting eagles, standardised bananas… each of these specimens are symptomatic of the rapidly transforming 'post-natural' era we live in. Often without us even noticing them, these creatures exponentially spread and co-exist with us.

A Bestiary of the Anthropocene seeks to capture this precise moment when the biosphere and technosphere merge and mesh into one new hybrid body. What happens when technologies and their unintended consequences become so ubiquitous that it is difficult to define what is 'natural' or not? What does it mean to live in a hybrid environment made of organic and synthetic matter? What new specimens are currently populating our planet at the beginning of the 21st century?

The book includes 100+ original collages and handmade pointillist illustrations, 60 written observations on selected hybrid specimens & creatures, 11 long contributions and original critical essays by leading experts.

Maria Roszkowska, Niicolas Nova, Nicolas Maigret (Eds.)

Set Margins', 256pp, 12cm x 17cm, paperback, silver ink on ultra black paper, second edition, 2024