Thursday, January 14, 2021

Andrea Zhang, A Mere Gesture, 2020

I received this powerful little accordion in the mail recently and below are the contents of the note that accompanied it.

My name is Andrea Zhang and I am an undergraduate senior from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I heard about your accordion publications from my professor, Robert Clarke-Davis. Taken from his advice, I have made an accordion book for you. 

This book is from a project I have been working on called A Mere Gesture. In traditional Chinese medicine, hair is made from the surplus of blood and essence. Therefore, touching and joining hair suggest intimacy and union. I use hair as a symbol to describe the limits and possibilities of human connection across space and time. I've been collecting hair from people around me and scanning them on a flatbed scanner to make photographs.

14 pages, single-sided, individual pages 5" (h) x 2.5" (w), and when fully open 2' 11".