Art and creative direction for Robert Zhao Renhui's project and solo exhibition 'A Bird in the Hand' (2011)
Continuing the "book program" for Zhao, which I mooted earlier in the year that began with the 'The Land Archive', this book continues in the same vein of "expanding the universe". Adopting a different aesthetic this time around as the Institute of Critical Zoologists (ICZ) — this body of work was developed for the release of his solo show at Arts Gallery, at the University of Arts London.
The inspiration for this edition was from my interests in strange, lo-fi, subcultural D.I.Y. zines, as well as Zhao's own interest in collecting arbitrary, bizarre picture books — volumes featuring anything from people, to animals, to car crashes -- books without texts. Hence, one of the primary ideas was to create a pure picture book, without context. The images from this exhibition were presented in these pages, itself printed (not unlike the low budget, monotone photocopied-and-stapled zines) in a duotone of beige-pink and black, set on glossy paper.
The "actual" volume for the exhibition, came in a "book-in-a-book"; the black pages attached in the middle was the total opposite of the pink part. It had no pictures, only text (index information for the images and exclusive content written for the book), and itself was rendered in the reverse colour scheme and printed on rough, matte paper. The book also came with a collectible reversible poster, "documents" from the institute's archive re-presented with this volume. One is an educational poster for classrooms and enthusiasts, featuring the core tenets of good birdwatching; on the reverse side, was a bird-watching championship winning team featuring personnel (myself included) from the ICZ.
Collectible poster
Promotional flyer
