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From the Bones of Old Horses
This project is a graphic novel: an autobiography of Prussian Blue. 'From the bones of old horses' follows Blue on a journey of self-discovery; blending fiction and fact to tell their story from laboratory ‘birth’ through history to present day – landing on moments where they are the unwitting catalyst for social change.
In 2021 created a 12 page zine as a proof of concept for this piece which was long-listed for the LDC 2021 Comics Award.
In 2022 I spent time at Blast Theory on a short residency programme
Below is a sample of the zine, and some work in progress.
“But who knows what good might come from the least of us?
From the bones of old horses is made the most beautiful Prussian Blue.”
–Joy Williams
The ideas in this sample of work are likely to end up in a middle chapter of the future book. We'll have met Blue before. Here, they’re popping up in Victorian England, thanks to the scientific work of Herschel and the invention of photography. Blue will meet Anna Atkins who created the first photographically illustrated scientific text book using Herschel's cyanotype process.
The following pages are more recent drafts from the middle of the first chapter. They're a sample, largely non-consecutive. We have begun this story in 1660 with the two creators of Blue, Konrad Dippel and Johann Diesbach, and we follow them to their point of meeting at the Prussian academy of sciences laboratory in Berlin. An coloourmaking accident gives rise to Prussian Blue – a new being.
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