The Island

I created a mythology of an isolated island that charts the repeat birth and death of the universe. The repeated cycle of the narrative is reflected in form of the book. This palm-sized book has no defined beginning or end: there are no external covers and the pages are bound in a circle. The reader can pick it up at any point and read forever.

Based on designs of indigenous Mesoamerican civilisations, the series of twenty-four runic illustrations feature the love affair of Life and Death, the schemes of powerful trickster figure “Nobody”, the passage of celestial birds and the dualistic Over-world and Under-world. In the time-honoured school project tradition, tea staining was used to age the paper, along with a few more advanced tricks.