zoe sadokierski
zoe sadokierski
Embedded Files
Getting to know the artists in The Social Glue of Sydney exhibition
May 9-24, Chrissie Cotter gallery
Getting to know the artists in The Social Glue of Sydney exhibition
May 9-24, Chrissie Cotter gallery
Zoë Sadokierski is a designer, writer, creative producer and associate professor in Visual Communication at the UTS School of Design. Her practice-based research explores ways that visual communication – particularly illustrated nonfiction, data storytelling and anarchival collage – can be used to engage audiences with complex scientific and cultural issues.
She is a former president and founding member of the Australian Book Designers Association. In 2015 Zoë established Page Screen Books, an independent publisher of artist’s books and visual essays. Her works on paper and artist books have been exhibited and collected internationally. Her book Father, Son and Other Animals (2024) explores explores climate change and species extinctions through the lenses of parenting and creative practice.
What materials are you drawn to?
I do a lot of work with natural history illustrations, but I use colour to make them feel more contemporary. I love the solid, vibrant colours of paint swatches — the people at Bunnings tolerate me collecting stacks of cards that are clearly not for interior design purposes. Dot stickers are my secret weapon for a pop of colour too.
Where do you find your materials?
When I travel, I stockpile bundles of brochures, postcards, tickets — whatever I can pilfer. I’m devastated that so many galleries and museums now have digital only collateral. I have boxes of ephemera and books, collected over decades from street libraries, school fetes and flea markets. I also reuse my own drawings and print making experiments for texture and colour.
forever peach
forever peach
paper collage on paint swatch
Josephine’s endlings 2
Josephine’s endlings 2
Do you have some books you've bought for collage that you haven't yet been able to cut up?
I have books that weren’t meant for collage but accidentally edge into the “can cut” pile. In my first job, I got in trouble for cutting up the “good” design magazines (to make a wall of eyes above my workstation to discourage the senior designer from looking my way. In other words, everything it fair game when I have a pair of scissors in hand!
Do you begin to make materials first or ideas first?
Bit of both, depends on my mood, and if the collage is work (for a design job) or play (for my mental health).
Do you have a library of cuttings, and if so, how big is that library and how do you store them?
If I’m working on a specific project or job, I will collate some cuttings to work with, but in general I work with whatever I pull out of my archive for that session.
Do you lay out lots of bits on a work surface and let relationships emerge from accidental arrangements, or do you go looking for particular elements to cut?
A bit of both. I usually do a loose scan of materials and assemble a bunch of papers/fragments that feel like they belong together. Then, I look for a starting point — usually a figure but something a “ground” and start building. It’s bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle, once you slip into the “zone” your eye finds the shapes/colours/textures that will work.
Are there cuttings you've made that are years old that you've never found a home for? What's the longest time that you've held on to a cutting before you found a home for it?
I was teaching a collage exercise to university students a few years ago and realised that I’d owned the sheets of Letraset we were working with since before they were born. Oof. I’m a hoarder of good fragments.
Do you glue your cuttings, or put them into arrangements and photograph them and put them back into your cuttings stash?
In a Social Glue session, I usually glue compositions but sometimes if I get a bit obsessed with a fragment and I can see it working in multiple collages, I use Blutak to hold pieces in place for photographing.
josephine’s endlings
josephine’s endlings
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse