Joel McFadyen
A History of Tasmardium
“The ascension of James Brachoth to the throne of the Amaratian Empire, the most powerful nation to have ever existed in its time, marked the end of a five-hundred-year trajectory of conflict and change that left Tasmardium forever altered.”
For several years I have been preoccupied with the presentation and understanding of historical conventions. To explore these conventions in a way that did not become mired in political meaning, I developed a fictional world in which they could play out.
I draw on fictional writers such as David Eddings, Ken Liu, George Martin, and Terry Pratchett to inform my construction of fictional worlds, cultures, and character interactions. I then allow my writing to be informed by the content and presentation of the history subjects I have studied in my conjoint degree, many of which were taught by significant historians in their fields such as Kim Phillips, Lindsay Diggelman, and Katrina Ford.
I take a traditional approach to painting, drawing on the
composition, colours, and techniques of great masters such as
Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Goya, combined with the influence of
contemporary painters such as Liz Maw.
The way humans treat the land they exist on, drawing and redrawing borders and visualizing immense spaces on a comparatively minute scale, is an important aspect to this project. The mechanisms by which a nation can come to claim small islands thousands of kilometers away – marriages, alliances, inheritance, warfare, as well as the lives of ordinary people – have been major players in the movement of people and culture throughout recorded history. It is these ideas which underpin this project.
