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A thread on @simonstalenhag's The Labyrinth, released via Kickstarter last year. Simon's art is so widely shared, yet the narrative aspect of his work is often overlooked. I wanted to do a little to correct that, because Labyrinth feels so timely and worthy of discussion.
The Labyrinth is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland of ambiguous origins. A poisoned atmosphere casts the planet in a greenish hue, and vast fields of ash choke the land. Within this grand backdrop the book keeps a close and personal focus on a small group of young people.
There's no plot to save or doom the world, no grand journey into the heart of the planet's sickness - instead the book is about those who live within this "new normal" of underground cities and bunkers, and vitally, the foundation on which this new social paradigm is built.
But while you would expect the strange alien landscapes to be the images carrying the narrative here, it is in fact their opposite - near photographic studies of institutional interiors and their typology of patterns and motifs - that connect to the heart of the book.
The Labyrinth is a book about the banality of evil and the implicit violence of order. Its paintings of quaint nordic ephemera glow with a sense of menace and stale repression, one which foreshadows the book's major turn. This is no fantasy of nostalgia...
...this is a depiction of a society designed to preserve tradition and order at all costs. For this reason it is grueling experience, one that reflects darkly on the world around us, and its structures. It is more pained and angry that I could have expected going in.
For this reason it feels like a book finely attuned to an era. It is of no surprise that it grew, like a parasite, out of the now shelved "Creatures Of The Fourth Quadrant" an optimistic looking project which Simon shared the image below from on his site.
The Labyrinth is a story of the atrocities that exist at the founding point of our societies, and the maze of passages that ultimately lead back to them, the beast at the heart of the maze. It is beautiful and sad, and one of the most powerful things I have read this past year.
Sadly the book itself is not yet available to non-backers of the project, and I know COVID has caused issues for the wonderful @FreeLeaguePub's distribution of the project. I hope it can reach a wider audience soon, because it feels like a book for the moment we are in.
That's it. Nothing else to add, but I strongly recommend you follow @simonstalenhag to see when the book will release to buy.
Thank you Simon for this incredible book.
Thank you Simon for this incredible book.
