notes from our email conversation re Russia / visual tone
● Sam: Also just doing some research on emigration of Russian scientists - apparently there was a big exodus of scientists in 1922-3 and lots of individuals leaving into the 1930s so I think are back story should hold up quite well!
● Just reading wikipedia page on cryonics now (apparently its cryonics not cryrogenics as I thought before) quite fascinating stuff -
● Bronia :wow, this is great, I’m getting really excited about researching early 20th century Russia now, history, inventors…. I think it that as well as enriching the plot it could really help to influence the visual aesthetic of the book. I’m thinking of a few things, like Russian dolls - you know the ones that fit inside each other? some of them are very intricate. and they can be used to hide things in….
● Also thinking of the Yuri Norstein animations we’ve recently seen - that kind of haunting grey mistiness that hangs over everything, with shards of beauty poking out of it…..
● russian fairy stories are often pretty dark. Do you know Baba-Yaga boney legs? An evil with who flew across the sky in a pestle and mortar, and had a house made of the bones of her victims…. See picture of Vasilissa, the heroine, in baba yaga’s skull- filled garden.
● Also i’d be really keen to find a way we can use photos of puppets(or ‘made things’ eg using fabric, wood, metal…that could be scenery too)- in the illustrations - ie the puppets from the touring theatre part of the ice cream van project. I like the idea of these images being photo- montaged in, blended with layers of illustration, collage, and of course text.
