Exo‑hominima was my first illustration commission, created for the publication .FUTUR (FUTUR404) in 2019. It imagines a post-human colony echoing Maasai visual culture and african landscape, blending speculative fiction and visual design.
A large-scale illustration was crafted in a detailed ligne claire influenced style. The visual imagined a colony in a terraformed valley reminiscent of the Rift in Africa, where mineral‑vegetal life entwines rock and tree into living architecture.
Accompanying the image is a micro‑narrative titled EXO‑Hominima (Sol 639), which explores the daily life of a settler encountering these living landscapes and reflecting on themes of heritage, adaptation, and ecological memory. The work was published in .FUTUR and also featured in Les Inrockuptibles.
You can find the translated micro-story below.
You can find the translated micro-story below.
Sol 639
I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my counterpart from Kepler 442b. He was quite surprised to hear that we had taken refuge in a valley reminiscent of the Great Rift and immediately wanted to see this jewel of the colonies for himself.
I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my counterpart from Kepler 442b. He was quite surprised to hear that we had taken refuge in a valley reminiscent of the Great Rift and immediately wanted to see this jewel of the colonies for himself.
The forced terraformation, initiated some two Earth centuries ago, had revealed traces of a nearly tropical climate from several millennia past. Life had, at some point, taken root here in a mineral-vegetal form. Here, rock and tree blend into one another: bark wears away like stone and mountains have roots.
Every morning when I wake up, I’m struck by how much this valley resembles our beloved ancestral Africa.
In twenty sols, we should be ready to begin animal introduction. I already have a few species in mind to test. All that’s left is convincing the dissidents, the ones with rotten seeds. Across the river, they don’t much like the idea of bringing so many things back from our former Eden. I too would have liked to start entirely from scratch and in fact that’s what we tried.
But we can’t recreate everything from nothing. Not that fast anyway.
I hope we’re not making a mistake.
The Martian-Tales - Sound design
In collaboration with the Innovation Lab of We Are Social, I also sound-designed and composed an original score for an AR experience happening on the cover of the book.
Format : Illustration + short story
Year : 2019 (commissioned for .FUTUR / FUTUR404)
Collaborators / Publication : .FUTUR, curated by Noémie Balmat / FUTUR404; also featured in Les Inrockuptibles / We Are Social
Role : Illustration and short-text author / Sound designer
Year : 2019 (commissioned for .FUTUR / FUTUR404)
Collaborators / Publication : .FUTUR, curated by Noémie Balmat / FUTUR404; also featured in Les Inrockuptibles / We Are Social
Role : Illustration and short-text author / Sound designer