Nino Bulling – författare

Actually, everything is perfectly okay. Ingken is together with Lily, who seems to be content with herself and her life. Ingken on the other hand is struggling a lot. Set against the background of global climate change, Ingken is searching for a self-­determined identity, a new name, for the things that can remain as they were and those that have to disappear. What is it that makes us humans? Do we have to burn everything down in order to define ourselves anew? Or can we also hold on to some things? “‘The World Is On Fire’—your own and the real one out there. Bushfires rage in Australia and Ingken’s world is thrown off balance. The ecological threat interweaves with fears of change. On this fluid journey to oneself, everything falters and yet is connected. What can we hold on to when we don’t know yet how everything might feel right?I like Nino Bulling’s way of illuminating complex situations and anchoring them in political dimensions. For me, it becomes great comic art through the fine nuances in the gestures and the vivid sceneries. Whether it’s a wild party night, a rural idyll or inner torment, the mood immediately jumps from each page into your own thoughts. That’s what I read for. ” Gesine Claus, Strips & Stories, Bookshop for Graphic Novels, HamburgThe comic is co-published with Colorama and part of Nino Bulling’s contribution to documenta fifteen.

Everything is changing–– but everything is also exactly the same. Ingken can’t ignore it: ice caps stained brown from forest fires, pipeline construction, drought… the whole world somehow persists despite the slow erosion of stability. After a trip to Paris, Ingken returns home ready for a break from drugs. Their supportive partner, Lily, is flushed, excited about a new connection she’s made. Although Ingken wants to be happy for her, there’s a discomfort they can’t shake. Sleepless nights fill with an endless scroll of images and headlines about climate disaster. A vague dysphoria simmers under their skin; they are able to identify that like Lily, they are changing, but they’re not sure exactly how and at what pace. Everyone keeps telling them to burn themself to the ground and build themself back up but they worry about the kind of debris that fire might leave behind.Nino Bulling’s artwork is immediately familiar. Like a conversation with a good friend, their story is told as quiet as it can be loud. Crowds and landscapes squiggle in expressive black and white. Red cuts through panels with energy and persistence, bringing life to what might seem dead. In its most intimate moments, Firebugs asks what it means to transition in a transitioning world.