A contemporary reimagining of the medieval bestiary through the lens of artists, printmakers and bookmakers. Rooted in a shared fascination with the power of imagined creatures and the narratives we build around them, the project invited artists to take on the role of explorer, encountering and documenting a newly discovered beast.

Each artist was given a simple brief: create a single folio page introducing your beast to the world. Some responded with scientific-style field notes or expedition sketches; others playfully leaned into fable, fantasy, or absurdity. The collection are diverse and sometimes unsettling, hybrids of form and meaning, rendered through print, drawing, collage, and text.

Displayed unbound in the exhibition, the pages are laid out like loose-leaf findings from a collective expedition. Viewers are invited to page through this growing menagerie, encountering creatures that reflect the shifting boundaries between fact and fiction, nature and imagination. At the heart of the project is the connection between bookmaking and discovery – how the format of the book can become a space for exploration and storytelling. Just as historical bestiaries juxtaposed fact with symbolism, this contemporary iteration holds space for ambiguity, charting a world that is always in flux and never fully explained.

A bound edition of Bestiary: A collaborative discovery is planned for 2026, bringing the pages together into a complete publication. One copy will be housed in the UWE Library archive, with others made available through future fairs and showcases. This exhibition marks the beginning of a project that continues to grow – beast by beast, page by page.

Also on display is a guest contribution to our exhibition:
A NYC Bestiary is a project from Bestiary, an interdisciplinary course taught by Jason Urban at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. The class included students from various majors ranging from graphic design and illustration to fashion and film with an interest in using the medieval bestiary as a way of understanding humanity’s changing relationship to the animal world. For A NYC Bestiary, the class collected occasions of human/animal interaction within the five boroughs and brought them to the printed page in a medieval aesthetic. The project emphasises some of the unique animal characters of New York framed through an historic lens.

PIC310 BESTIARY artists: Alice Alfayoumi | Amelia Biggs | Sydney Chong | Ev Cooper | Molly Creamer | Cami Guo | Anneke Risch | Angela Rische | Gabrielle Smith | Jaden Story | Ash Troche | Sam Tuck | Anna Wilson | Yutong Wu | Maddy Wyatt | Amelia Yetter | Yue Zhang & Jason Urban, Pratt Institute 2025.

This exhibition is open to the public Monday – Friday 9am-5pm. No booking needed. The library is on the first floor of B block. Public parking on meters on main road or at Ashton Court.

For more information on Bower Ashton Library, visitor access and campus map, see the library website.

UWE Bristol, City Campus at Bower Ashton, Kennel Lodge Road, Bristol BS3 2JT.