Last of Meeting Places by Zoe Sadokierski

This diagram blends content from Neville Shute's post-apocalyptic novel On The Beach (1957) with data about nuclear weapons testing conducted on Australian territory in the 5 years preceding the novel's publication. Mushrooms are a visual analogy for nuclear explosion, but also represent hope; some mushrooms can absorb radioactive isotopes from soil – even if humankind orchestrates a nuclear holocaust, the planet can regenerate without us. It is one of a series of 'speculative diagrams' Zoe Sadokierski has designed which merge ecological fiction with real world science.