Artist Talk: Zeno Sworder

Join us for an evening with award-winning author and illustrator Zeno Sworder as he discusses his new picture book, Once I Was a Giant. Zeno will also offer insights into his creative practice, from the art of visual storytelling to his illustration techniques — right down to his favourite pencils! On the night, you’ll also be able to enjoy a special exhibition of prints from the book in the Wedge Gallery.

6:30pm arrivals for 7pm start.

Tickets: $10 per person (plus booking fee and GST), redeemable on the night towards any book purchase.

Pick up your $10 coupon when you check in at the front door.

Please note: Humanitix booking fee and GST is not part of your coupon value.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

When a picture-book maker runs out of stories, his pencil decides it’s time to tell her own…

‘My first memories were of darkness and reaching for sunlight. My roots connected me to everything. I was small but I was also the forest.’

Here is the story of a green giant and a small wanderer who formed a friendship that spanned lifetimes.

From the award-winning author of My Strange Shrinking Parents comes a luminescent and hopeful tale about our living natural world.

From Zeno: This is a book where the tree is the protagonist and hero. As we all tumble towards an increasingly digital, atomised and urbanised world I wanted to make a story about the natural world that touches on ideas of interdependence, metamorphosis and impermanence. Trees make all of our lives possible but they are often absent from stories because we tend to only care and feel for characters that are like us. This story aims to bring trees alive for young people by telling an imaginative story rooted in recent scientific discoveries about the social lives of trees and their abilities to communicate, learn and feel. The story covers the entire span of an individual tree’s life and the intimate relationships it shares with the forest and the creatures that it nourishes and houses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Zeno Sworder is an award-winning writer and artist who lives in Melbourne with his young family. After studying Chinese literature and migration law at university, he ended up as a dish washer. Later, he went on to work as a journalist, an English language teacher, a consular officer, an advocate for refugees and immigrants and a jewellery designer. He is a lover of all stationery but has a particular soft spot for pencils. Once I was a Giant is his third picture book. His previous books are This Small Blue Dot and My Strange Shrinking Parents.