The book Coralographies: The 7,500-year-old Coral Animalesque by David Brooks unfolds as an artistic investigation into the material and symbolic dimensions of coral. The publication reflects the artist’s broader practice, where natural systems are examined through processes of transformation, interaction, and perception.
David Brooks is an artist whose large-scale sculptures and installations explore the entanglement of natural ecosystems and human infrastructure. Merging ecological research with sculptural experimentation, he investigates how nature, culture, and technology continuously shape one another—for better or worse.
The artist completed a residency with the Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation, a non-profit and non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity in the northeastern Mediterranean, with a particular focus on the Greek seas and islands. During this residency, Brooks focused on studying coral forests and coralligenous habitats. The outcome of this research was a new commission for the exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, on view at EMST from 15 May 2025 to 15 April 2026.
This publication documents both this remarkable natural world and the extraordinary artistic process that has rendered it visible.