Calligraphy: or the art of writing, is a visual art form prized above all others in traditional China.
The focus of this piece is on the subject. This book then uses the interview process to explore a very different form of intimacy: one's unique perspective of their relationship, thoughts and opinions on traditional Chinese Calligraphy.
The word interpreting has 2 definitions.
The first (interpreter) is my act of translation from Mandarin to English.
The second (interpret) is the subject's explanation of the ancient topic discussed.
The subject of this piece was my mother, who has been trained, educated and practices under the traditional Chinese arts, including calligraphy for over 4 decades.
I conducted the interview with a plan of having her go through the history of calligraphy, from the very roots of its creation to the way she learnt it while growing up during the communist revolution as much of the traditional values, systems and arts was lost and forever altered. This carries the narrative in an extremely interesting way, from an objective viewpoint, to one that is very personal and moving.
I then curated and created this book, exercising my editorial design skills.
Traditional Binding: The book is completely bound and assembled by hand using traditional 4 hole stab binding techniques.
