fac-simile vol. 1: Invisible Cities / Story of the Stone and three others
Coptic binding on rice paper and newsprint, 2021
Excerpts from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and the classic Chinese novel Story of the Stones, both in English translation, were handwritten or cut and pasted onto rice paper respectively. This text was further annotated with excerpts from three other works: Borges' Garden of Forking Paths, Descartes' Meditation of First Philosophy and Cervantes' Don Quixote. Though originated from different times, places and cultures, all five works converge on this single point-- the (un)certainty of the self and the reality. Highlighting the deliberate orientalism in the Invisible Cities and Garden of Forking Paths, juxtaposing them with a classic work from the "orient", and binding them together with another "oriental" method, this first volume of fac-simile raises questions pertaining the "other". Can the "other" be, instead of a complete stranger, an unrealized possibility of oneself? Can it be that the world is a labyrinth where different cultures are the alternatives and the paths not taken for each other? And when and where do these paths converge?...
