EYELID BOOK

眼皮书

2018 

62*14 in

canvas, string, inkjet print. Filling: plastic bags, paper

This book is made after a poem I wrote:

LABRADOR DOG

2018

Eyelids and little toes

Humming a song with not much clue

Thick brows and silkworms

 Spilling a bottle of cologne

I,

Eat raw lettuce with lime

Fake maple syrup and milk with wine

And get flashed in the eyes from

The reflection from a phone from a passerby

Why do I always want to smell

Those who wear round-collared cotton shirts?

Girls in bikinis dress less than those

In their underwear

Choosing between fermented

Doughs and bad jokes

Anything at all to catch the fish in the ocean

Squeezing a fat one slim

So I say

“FETCH!”

To my imaginary Labrador dog

Throwing a bone across the floor

This is a book in the form of a wall installation. The audience is encouraged to touch it with their hands as they would with a traditional book. The book is made after a poem I wrote as indicated in the image. The shapes of the five pages show the transition from an eyelid to a little toe, which is the first line of my poem. It is an experimental piece to explore the possibilities of translating textual language into visual language. The images created from a written poem can only be imagined based solely on the person's memories. Giving a poem a material body in a curious form is a way to let poetry engage with the audience through senses in the three-dimensional world. The sound from the plastic bag filings, the rough texture of the raw canvas as compared to the delicacy of the printed paper, and the fuzziness of the colorful strings; they are all working together visually as well as sensuously to give the poem a new way of living.