Book of the Week: LITTLE DOOMSDAYS by Nic Low and Phil Dadson
Little Doomsdays, a collaboration between writer Nic Low and artist Phil Dadson, is the latest volume in the exquisite and thoughtful Kōrero series edited by Lloyd Jones — a series of inspired matchings between writers and visual artists or photographers.
In an uncertain and changing world, how can we safeguard what is important to us against (or despite) the physical or cultural forces of annihilation (so to call them)? Extrapolating from the concept of waka huia in te ao Māori, Little Doomsdays collects by description other containers, both metaphorical and practical, from throughout the millennia and around the globe, intended (even if that intention is doomed) to preserve the treasures of human experience and safeguard the seeds of new possibilities. Speculating on a project by an “unstable grouping of scholars, writers and fanatics from several Ngāi Tahu hapū” to create an “ark of arks”, the book becomes itself an ark of arks, the incantatory rhythm of Low’s prose matched by the vigour and texture of Dadson’s paintings to create a capsule of experience that will resonate across time. Beautifully done.
Other books in the Kōrero series:
High Wire by Lloyd Jones and Euan Macleod (read Thomas’s review)
Shining Land by Paula Morris and Haru Sameshima
The Lobster’s Tale by Chris Price and Bruce Foster
Bordering on Miraculous by Lynley Edmeades and Saskia Leek (read Thomas’s review)
