The accretion of identity

Berkeley, California, Flying Fish Press, 2022

Artist Books

Image

1 artist book (unpaged)

portraits (some color)

25 x 14 x 4 cm

Environmental Design Library

Limited edition of 30 numbered copies, signed by the artist.
Imprint from Flying Fish Press (@flyingfishpress) post on Instagram.
"The Accretion of Identity was created by Julie Chen. It was printed using a combination of letterpress and digital techniques. Papers include handmade abaca sheets from the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio, and Japanese Mino Washi from Paper Connection International. The book structure used is a zhen xian bao, or Chinese thread book. This structure was traditionally used to store tools and patterns for needlework"--Colophon.
Four-panel artist book opens in two halves, each half with a shallow box tray (and hinged cover panel with inset illustration) containing paper sheets folded and assembled to create four layers topped with eight folded paper flower structures arranged in two uniform columns of four. The paper flower blossoms open individually to reveal one of a series of letterpress-printed prompt questions targeting racial and ethnic identity (chiefly Asian-American), then pull open further in pairs to show a different chronological portrait of the artist marked with a faceted identity label. A third layer showing a block of autobiographical text in letterpress on one of four numbered leaves then surfaces when groups of four blossoms are pulled further apart, and a fourth layer hidden beneath all eight flowers in each tray shows one half of a composit portrait illustration of the artist.

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