What involves thoughts upon listening to the phrase “beneath the surface”? Stephen Ellcock’s Underworlds: A Compelling Journey Through Subterranean Realms, Real and Imagined (Thames & Hudson, $35, 9780500026311) rouses our minds from “a world of surfaces, of gloss and illusion and first impressions, a global empire of signs, sensory saturation and instant gratification” to recollect the darkish, labyrinthine world of the subterranean that has, since time immemorial, served as a wellspring of awe and concern for humankind. Known for curating on-line artwork galleries on social media, Ellcock presents an eclectic but coherent assortment of photos starting from dizzying ossuaries, to nightmarish animals of the deep sea, to the soothing colours of agates, to the delicate buildings of mycorrhizal fungi.
Underworlds is break up into 5 sections encompassing each the actual and the imaginary. Ellcock pulls off a formidable feat in gathering materials from sources as various and multifaceted as an underground ecosystem: In his quest to encourage, he strikes not solely between continents and time intervals, but additionally disciplines reminiscent of philosophy, biology, artwork historical past and literature. Surreal, intricate artworks and images are accompanied by a fair pacing of Ellcock’s personal prose and factual explanations, in addition to excerpts from others’ musings. The result’s a dreamlike environment and a trove of data that can depart readers with a newfound connection to the realms under us, which now we have too usually mindlessly ransacked for revenue. As Ellcock writes, if we “heed the echoes of eternity calling from the lower depths,” we’d simply “claw our way back out of darkness.”
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