The Thousands

Recently a friend told me he’d swallowed a parasite. Not on purpose of course, that’d be weird, but by accident, and for weeks he had no idea of the little squiggling bug dwelling in his belly. So once he found out about it he was prepared to kill it – much like the story of Daphnia, the microscopic water flea that is massacred by Hydra’s nine heads in Stephanie Rajalingam’s Magic Wallpaper: Hideous Beauties Collection.

Rajalingam has spent weeks staring down the barrel of a microscope, getting to know the noisy ‘insides’ of water, plants and human bodies – vessels we mostly perceive as being ‘silent’. She has then blended her scientific observations with Greek Mythology and classic design to bring you Magic Wallpaper, projections that move and interact in kaleidoscopic patterns on the wall, in front of your very eyes. You can check it out in the flesh as part of The Sydney Fringe, but Stephanie’s also created paper designs in case you’re thinking of redecorating the study.

Like my friend’s parasite experience, you might be a bit freaked out by these images at first, but it’s healthy to confront those things we like to pretend don’t exist. It’s another reason why the Hideous Beauties Collection is aptly named.