We recently chatted with Dr. Pacharee Sudhinaraset, Associate Professor of English at New York University (NYU), and Rob Sato, a Los Angeles-based visual artist, about collaborating on Pacharee’s new book, Worlds at the End. The book examines literary projects by writers of color at the turn of the twenty-first century who reimagined Los Angeles’s infrastructure through an apocalyptic aesthetic.
Once–Future Office incorporated Rob’s striking painting, The Steps of Volta, into the book’s cover design and brought inspiration from his textural watercolors into each chapter opener. Like Rob’s work, our visual language for the book’s information design evokes an interplay between hope and destruction, light and dark.
Check out our recent conversation on Los Angeles, duality, and rainbows can as harbingers of change.
Worlds at the End
Pacharee, in your own words, what is the book about?
The book is a way to study the violent systems we live in—without being debilitated by that work. Growing up in LA, I was drawn to writers from the post-1990s period, like Octavia Butler, who helped me understand the capitalist world system that transformed 20th century Los Angeles into the global superpower it is today.
The book asks: what does it mean to think about the end of the world through a woman of color feminist lens? And what happens when the end isn’t the end, but a moment of regeneration?
What happens when the end isn’t the end, but a moment of regeneration?
Dr. Pacharee Sudhinaraset
Pacharee, why were you drawn to Rob’s work?
At the beginning of the project, Once–Future asked me what I wanted the book to feel like, which was interesting, because no one’s ever asked what it feels like. Rob, your artwork FEELS like the book for me.
Rob shared an original sketch of the painting with Pacharee when she visited his studio in Los Angeles this summer
As designers, we try to be your visual translators, which is why we ask questions like: what are you trying to convey? What’s the tone, the feeling? What did you want us to capture about how Rob’s work makes you feel?
To me, Rob’s work feels regenerative. It toggles between beauty and monstrosity. It’s so beautiful yet quietly end-of-the-world-y. And really whimsical. There’s a darkness and lightness within the images that I love.
Rob, how do you feel about Pacharee’s description of your work possessing a duality between beauty and monstrosity?
I love it—that’s how I want my work to be interpreted. I’m glad that’s being conveyed.
Rob, we’re curious what your connection to Los Angeles is?
I grew up in Northern California, but I’ve been living in Los Angeles with my wife Ako for nearly 25 years. She’s from Los Angeles, so she introduced me to a lot of the Los Angeles world.
Rob, tell us about the painting The Steps of Volta that’s featured on the cover of Pacharee’s book.
It started with a story I told my niece. The story was about a town surrounded by hills made out of rainbows. These rainbows used to be a stairway to another place, but then they became disconnected and crumbled into ruins. One night they started glowing, which really freaked the townspeople out, so they ventured out to try and see what the rainbows were trying to tell them, I think. My niece was relatively unimpressed with the story, but I started building it out as a comic and trying to visualize these hills and using LA as my point of reference.
I always orient myself to the San Gabriel foothills, which is where I hike a lot. It’s a natural place that also has incredible views of the LA sprawl. When you stand in that beautiful, vibrant place, you see the pulsing, vibrant apocalypse of LA spreading out before you. Some of the figures in the painting look like LA hikers chilling, hanging out. And the one figure at the top, the one that’s looking back from the hill, is meant to look like they’re having some kind of reaction, like something is upsetting them up there.
This painting feels very much like Los Angeles flowing through me.
Rob Sato
How has Los Angeles influenced your work…or infiltrated your brain?
This painting—and its body of work—feel very much like LA flowing through me. My practice has a lot of observational drawing in it. It’s extremely intuitive: I go out and draw from life in LA. It’s one of my favorite practices.
The Steps of Volta by Rob Sato
Pacharee, what drew you to that painting in particular?
I loved the layers, I loved how it seemed like the figures were walking…nowhere—but somewhere at the same time.
Rob, what were your thoughts when Pacharee reached out about featuring this painting on her book cover?
I was really happy when she reached out. I’m a big Octavia Butler fan, too. And it was so gratifying that Pacharee saw the work’s meaning connected to her book. A lot of people just see the beauty––they say, I like rainbows, they’re very pretty! It was so great to hear from somebody who saw the complexity in it.
A lot of people just see the beauty—they say, I like rainbows, they’re very pretty! It was so great to hear from somebody who saw the complexity in it.
Rob Sato
Pacharee, you mentioned that you were inspired by Rob’s thoughts on rainbows, specifically.
Yes, I actually included a quote from Rob about rainbows in my Coda. He explains that rainbows mean sh*t’s about to happen. They’re about transformation, and change––good or bad. It’s not about making a judgement, but rather about asking how we survive in these hard moments of transformation.
What surprised you, if anything, about this process?
The whole thing has kind of surprised me, how well it all fit together. It’s really a perfect meshing of image and subject. Never before has it felt so much like, oh, these things belong together, there’s no question.
What’s up next for you both? What’s exciting you these days?
I just had a solo show at Subliminal Gallery that was about getting grounded during these turbulent times, and I also work in animation doing character design. I’ve also been recording my dreams in images, unfiltered through any analysis.
What about you, Pacharee?
I’m working on decompressing. I just started my sabbatical, and my next book project is about Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian-American writers and artists who have been creating all this really interesting artwork, poetry, and performance art on 20th century war, genocide, and refugee escape.