Darkfire is a is a collaborative initiative between Professor Sean Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Printmaking, University of Alberta (U of A), Jonathan Hart, Director of Comparative Literature and Professor of English, U of A and Associate Professor Susan Colberg, Design, U of A. This unbound artist-book consists of 10 prints accompanied by 10 poems written by Professor Hart. The book, designed by Colberg, includes a title page, text layout, the ten image/poem pairings and a colophon all housed in a portfolio case.

Caulfield and Hart used themes and poetic images taken from Dante's Inferno as a common start for each of their image/text pairings. They share an ongoing interest in the Divine Comedy, as well as with the long history of illustration associated with this work (Blake, Botticelli). The intention was not to illustrate the Inferno in the traditional sense, but rather to use it as a motivation from which they could find common formal and conceptual inspiration. More specifically, they were interested in passages in the Inferno, such as Dante's description of the wood of suicides in Canto XIII, or the rain of fire falling upon the shades in Canto XIV, that are sensual in nature and which describe the human body or an environment in transformation. These compelling images, often inspired by earlier classical and medieval myths, have a power that endures in contemporary society in the face of drastic cultural, social and environmental change.

By drawing on the Inferno for inspiration, they built imagined landscapes populated by enigmatic objects that refer to both mechanistic and naturalistic forms in order to explore themes of mutation, metamorphosis and biology/technology dichotomies.

Responding to the image/poem pairings, Colberg combined traditional and contemporary approaches to book typography and text/image relations within design. The resulting book is understated, yet powerful.

The hope is that this collaboration might encourage individuals experiencing this artist's book to engage in reflection and dialogue about the changing environments of our daily lives. By investigating the formal and conceptual dynamic of relations between text and image, the intention is for Darkfire to be a celebration of poetic language and imagery, as well as an artifact that pay homage to the artist's book as an important part of contemporary culture.