15283-B-Blokker

216 THESIS COVER Organic danse macabre - by Kim Deja For the cover of this thesis illustrator Kim Deja has created a series of designs for the publication’s cover and chapter headings. In dialogue with Britt, and inspired by the notion of the human body at the heart of Britt’s research, Kim Deja’s artworks show human silhouettes and organs interwoven into a delicate, flowing collage. The drawing combines bodily fragments in coherent, surreal compositions where anatomical elements grow into new organisms. These images are indicative of how the illustrator, like many of Britt’s friends and family, understands the intimate knowledge developed by Britt’s stories about her research project: she visualizes the body and it’s organs by the language of film, books and art. Combined with these drawings, the reader of this thesis is inducted into a fascinating visualization of an illustrated autopsy or an anatomical art class; science fuses with the imagination as the biological becomes almost fantastical. Kim Deja describes these works as ‘a dance macabre, where images appear almost fluid’ like a momentarily coherent mirage before its dissipation into disembodied nothingness. Analogous with Britt’s research interests, these fleeting, ephemeral images, never becoming sinister or dark, retain an ethereal beauty. Biography Kim Deja’s work is balanced on the edge of reality and fantasy. Her mostly large-scale drawings form an intricately detailed world of imagination, mystery and symbolism. Always looking for parallel worlds, Kim Deja is an adventurous dreamer armed with a pencil. Born in 1985, she has studied at The Hague Royal Conservatoire, and now lives and works in Zoetermeer, The Netherlands. Instragram.com/kim_deja . Thesis cover