Animalcules Colouring Book

Let’s say a blank page is not actually blank. In fact, let’s say it is anything but blank. Devoid of colour, yet infinitely colourful; full of possibilities for multicoloured pens and literally covered by multitudinous life forms. It turns out that even the emptiest page is technically more than full – it’s alive. Do microbes respond to colour on paper? Can spontaneous doodles give rise to new species? Based on Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s term for microorganisms, this age-fluid book considers a world where the smallest is suddenly in control of the largest. Its illustrations function as an exploration into morphological occurrences, rejecting the goal-oriented, the figurative and the categorical. Following a traditional format, these pages attempt to open up a creative bypass. To draw is to embrace mutational forms, and to colour in these pages is to understand that many possible forms may emerge as a bear or a bacterium. We are what we draw. Time then to let those animalcules express the possible colours of kingdoms to come.