An exhibition catalogue designed for the first edition of “Rock the Boat”, an exhibition series held every 3 months in discarded sites in Sichuan, China. It includes images of the exhibition in different times, and online chat interviews with invited artists.

I first heard about the exhibition a month before I started this project. I was attracted by the temporality of the exhibition, and how the works and the exhibition are changed naturally or deliberately by audience overtime. I saw photos where audience are adding their own words next to the work, taking some pieces apart, treated the work as trash or kept as souvenirs. Since this particular exhibition located in a demolished building surrounded by construction and life trash, it is a perfect test ground to observe how art differentiate from its strong-stated environment.

I couldn't find any more information on this exhibition other than its name and inviting artists. So I reached out to a friend of my friend who post the images about it, and luckily he knows the exhibition organizer Jody Huang. After a few rounds of discussions on WeChat with the Jody, where she said that they were deliberately avoiding any formal press release because they want to take time to form their voice. To respect that, we agreed on doing informal chats via WeChat with individual artists for the texts of this catalogue, and my chat with Jody was also included as a "preface".

Nevertheless, the theme/focus of the exhibition is explicit. In my own notes, it includes discussions about these demolished building's previous residents - people fought for a better life in a big city, their life and spiritual conditions, or observations of the architectural structure, sounding environment, etc. And my goal is to create a catalogue that respects, records and reflects the spirit of this exhibition.

In the catalogue, the "interviews" are kept in raw online chat format to establish its casualness. I had a great time online chatting with these artists, we went deep into some of the micro-issues and the macro-environment of the city. Showing our dialogue in its original form also ease in the reader with my perspective.

Every work has its "label" hand written with chalk on the wall, next to the work. I asked my friend took photos of them, and processed it as the title of the work in this catalogue, in order to preserve and display the rusty feeling of this exhibition, and how it merges into its rusty environment.

Since I'm unable to return to the original exhibition sites, I took the photos of this catalogue on a very similar space - the construction space next to our school. 

Luckily, I went back home the summer of 2018, and get to meet with most of them in person. I sat through their discussion on their next exhibition 搞 #2, and we went through the catalogue, and together we decided to print 100 copies for friends & families, and people who has invested in this exhibition as a gift of gratitude and future reference.

Could be found at 2019 Otis Art Book Fair.

Thank you!