A conceptually driven work layering mapping, technological development, geopolitics and the climate emergency. In Pluta’s book one steps through experimental and exploratory texts and artworks into a series of slightly terrifying mortuary-slab-grey images of an atlas. Making up the lion’s share of the book, these images of blueprints or maps are presented in groupings and seem partially submerged underwater. They are actually were made by shining light through the pages of three long-out-of-print editions of The Reader’s Digest Great World Atlas. Hovering inside the images are reversed text elements, some presented as Rorschach blots or are otherwise doubled and mirrored. Each grouping is led by a textual element which introduces stratified meaning over the photographs. Another small series of site-based still lifes deposit globes amongst volcanic rocks, into moon-like landscapes which read to me like comic sci-fi vignettes.

Linking aerial views and the imperialist project along with the legions of nasty shit that goes with that, like nuclear testing, entrenched racism, the brutal enforcement of territorial lines, Pluta’s book is a frightening exploration of these alliances read through a body, through a map, and through experimental text and image making.

Pluta’s book was winner of the Perimeter Books Small Book Prize.