Dans La Forêt Rouge
Co-written by Jen Rice and Chelsea Mortenson
Nature has been disrupted in the Red Forest since the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor number four exploded in 1986. You can find the Red Forest inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where the radioactive contamination remains too high for people to live safely. Here the trees and animals grow up with radiation and without people – growing strangely, as if they are held under a spell. Within every living organism in the Red Forest, a struggle against mutation takes place on a cellular level, hidden below the surface. In the Red Forest, people have left behind an unimaginable nature. This is a true story.
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This is the story of post-Chernobyl in a forest close to Pripyat. A grove of trees there was so heavily irradiated that that they turned red, the normal agents of decomposition were killed, and the dead trees were left standing. Eventually these trees were bulldozed and buried, and new trees were planted on top. A passing bear tells this story to one of the young trees growing up in the forest. We wanted to tell this story like a modern folk tale, with many images and few words. If a good picture book is for putting children to sleep, the purpose of a book like this for adults would be to wake them up.
The woodcuts were made and printed by Chelsea at the carpe plumbum studio in Leipzig with the support of the bbkl.
Published in French by La Ville Brûle
Order this book from the publisher (website is in french, ships internationally)
Nos Mondes Sauvages
Cover image & interior double page
Collective Edition featuring the works of : Chelsea Mortenson, Philippe Charlier, Caroline Audibert, Guillaume Logé, Penda Diouf, Patrick Varetz, Christine Van Acker, Derf Backderf, Olivia Lavergne, Iris Pouy, Thomas Azuélos, Simon Rochepeau, Agnès Villette, Ulrich Lebeuf, Marie Boralevi, Elisa Vix, Cyril Casemeze, Mathilde Larrère, Elise Thiebaut (among many others)
Revue edited by the association Coleres du Present, published by Invenit editions
Almanach Ides de Mars
interior images
Chedly Atallah, Léandre Bernard Brunel, Sophie Pugnet, Marion Moskowitz, Emmanuel Saulnier (Direction)
featuring the work of a great many artists cited here
this artist book is not for sale but is being distributed freely by the artists
La Porte, Le Rêve
Illustrations by Chelsea Mortenson, French prose and poetry by Christophe Lamiot-Enos
Published by Lanskine Editions
Lubok 12
interior, two double pages, linocut print
The 12th volume of the Lubok Series was published in collaboration with the printmaking department of the Paris art school Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts (ENSBA).
Artist book with 92 black and white original linocuts by 23 students of École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris
Paperback, 94 pages, 24x32 cm, edition of 500
Participating artists:
Roxane Alaime, Eliot Anderson, Laurene Barnel, Camille Benarab-Lopez, Mehdi Besnainou, Thelma Cappello, Elliott Causse, Leo Chesneau & Theo Ghiglia, Come Clerino, Juliette Frenay, Nikolay Georgiev, Gaspard Laurent, Laureline Le, Berenice Lefebvre, Thomas Lesigne, Tereza Lochmannova, Betty Rose Manzetti, Paul Moragues, Chelsea Mortenson, Camille Pozzo di Borgo, Malena Robin, Mercedes Semino
Under the direction of Wernher Bouwens and Christoph Ruckhäberle
Cover design by Christophe
Peek inside issue 12 at Lubok (sold out)