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Helen Zhang

  1. World Body Mind
  2. The Unfamiliar Body
  3. En dedans-Giselle
  4. Future Unknown Exhibition
  5. Graphing Ballet
  6. Improvising Ballet
  7. The Empty “pagex”
  8. Sip
  9. L-L
  10. Don’t Touch My Body

Writings

︎︎︎helenjiayuzhang@gmail.com ︎︎︎zhangjiayu0829@126.com
@helen_jzhang
are.na/helen-zhang/my-fooood

The Empty “pagex”

Editorial/Experimental photography/Text
5.5in*7.8in print
A page can’t be flipped. The Empty “pagex” is a double-mounted hardcover bilingual typesetting with photo narrative with words association. By using the concept of dislocation, objects obtain unfamiliarity that is beyond their stereotypical property. The book illustrates an infinite cycle of people trying to escape the cultural and social education, which sets a common standard.
Pagex is a metaphor of the society we live in and the perspective that we are shaped into. The whole book is divided into four chapters: the context pages, the image cycle, the body text, and the index object guide. The introduction to the program utilizes text as subtitles that are being typed and selected, also visualizing dynamic motion while typing.
photo narrative with blurred x bilingual body text
The photography and the blurred x within the image imply the undefined boundary of a program and reality. Body text elaborate the keywords on margins, which includes references from literature and art, arousing dislocated thoughts towards convention with knowledge we can gain to think critically. Finally, the introduction includes personified description of all the repetitive objects.
index of objects cheese and fire
The absurd images are a collection of visual representation of propaganda. The blurry x within the image, convey the struggling process of escaping the mixed reality. The realization of living in a programmed world is proven with a pixelized x appearing on images taken in real world. This is the pagex that can’t be flipped.
12x as page number
The pagex is the cycle we can’t escape; it is always empty. Struggling with inertial thinking and entering the image narrative loop. From the body text explaining ideal concepts that cannot be understood, and from the final index, which cycle back to the first page. The content and typography decision both imply the infinity of convention.
We can’t escape the factors of time and space, education, and society, and from birth to death, the perception of learning is based on things that have long been defined. This book tries to awaken a critical awareness of human by presenting unconventional concepts.
Available for purchase at printed matter: https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/64254

(Action  Muscle  Gravity  Dislocation  Consciousness  History  Puppet  Path  Micro  Macro  Imagination  Illusion  Feminine  Intention  Seen  Unseen  Perspective  Reaction  Nature  Scale  Whole  Truth  Right  X  TV)


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