Reading, an Ocean

Taiwanese artist Cheng Tsung FENG always focuses on traditional handcrafted culture. For the large-scale installation art for Hsinchu State Library, his subject is “Chinese Stitched Binding”, which is a kind of book binding method with a long history.

When the idea becomes text, the text falls on the paper, the paper is bundled through the rope, and it finally assembles together as a book. FENG transforms this binding craft from a plane into a three-dimensional curving unit (over 1000 pieces), then he combines the library’s space to create a giant installation just like a big wave that is facing to people.

After the exhibition is over, this work will be carefully disassembled into thousands of books. FENG will hand-print the sketches and drawings of this work with numbers on the cover. These books will leave the building with people and go everywhere. People will write their stories in books, just like the history of reincarnation here for a hundred years.

Reading is like an ocean, it is boundless and endless, and we are like riding a small boat, wandering in the sea, through reality and fiction, between different identities and to everywhere of the world.

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