Author: Yingbao
Let's start by reading two poems:
Design Poems
I believe that after everyone reads it, the biggest gain is to finish reading the poem.
The two poems are excerpted from design poems published in 2011 , a collection of poems that netizens call the originator of "crazy literature." (Some netizens feel that it belongs to "nonsense literature")
However, the attitude of the publishing and literary circles to "Design Poems" is one-sided praise, and it has been reprinted several times and exported foreign copyrights several times.
Admirers believe that this collection of poems uses pictures to form words, which is a unique poetic expression.
Netizens said that it is incomprehensible, if these prefaces do not match the afterword, only to try to see the fast words can also be regarded as "poetry", it is humiliating literature. In addition, they also issued questions such as "form is greater than content", "waste of paper", "cheating money" and so on.
The author of Design Poems is Chinese book designer Zhu Yingchun, and in fact, each of his works is full of controversy — the destructive power of the text is too strong, impacting the concepts of many people, especially in China, which has a deep cultural heritage.
Published in 2007, You can say it's a photo book or you can think of it as a notebook, because every page in the book is heavily blank, with only a few ants passing by occasionally, or traces of ant colonies crawling.
Sometimes, the reader has to open the gap in the staple to find the ants hiding.
This "photo collection" was awarded the "2008 World's Most Beautiful Book" special prize by the German Book Art Foundation, and competed with 626 books from 34 countries and regions. Regarding the reason for the award, some media have explained it like this: "From the struggle process of the ants, I feel the soft groaning and shouting of people. ”
Ant-Yo
Is Ant-Yo too high? Let's not discuss it for the time being, first, art is a very subjective existence, and second, this is already Zhu Yingchun's "most gentle" work.
In the 2015 book "Bug Book", Zhu Yingchun created a new language - bug language.
The Bug Book
Insect language, i.e. traces left by more than 100 species of insects crawling or nibbling on leaves and flowers. Different insects, different crawling trajectories, different "tooth marks", all represent different characters.
There are differences in the behavior of bugs every second, which is driven by various factors, ideally, to sort out their behavior, that is, to understand their thoughts.
The Book of Bugs is written in worm language, from the inside text and the title of the book on the cover to the name of the publisher.
At the new book sharing meeting, Zhu Yingchun's speech was also worm language, and in order to let the fans in the audience understand, he also specially invited a worm language translator. I venture to guess that if bug language were widespread, people would be chatting all day long, "Whoa-wah- (It's also cute)
Zhu Yingchun believes that the core of insect language is to cherish resources and respect for living beings, "Adults always use 'harmful' or 'beneficial' to evaluate everything, such as caterpillars are disgusting, cockroaches are dirty, bees are industrious... In fact, bugs are also living beings, and they also have a set of laws for continuing and creating life. There may even be no humans on Earth, but not without bugs."
When you understand this, you also learn the worm language.
Comparison table of insect and human scripts.
He was relieved that more and more curious children were willing to learn and learn bug language. At a solo exhibition, he overheard a conversation between a father and son. Dad said, "These are the words?" The son said, "This is a letter written by a bug to a human being." ”
The Bug Book won the Silver Award for "The World's Most Beautiful Book of 2017". It is said that when the judges first saw the book, they all thought it was a collection of ethnic minority characters, and then suddenly realized: "It turned out to be a dictionary of nature!" ”
In 2017, Zhu Yingchun set his sights on birds. You guessed it, he created a form of expression similar to "bird language". In the painting and photography collection "The Bird in the Shape", there are many strangely shaped birds.
At first, readers thought it was a "Bird Classic of Mountains and Seas", but Zhu Yingchun smiled: "These are the shapes of bird droppings!" ”
"The Bird in the Shape"
After accepting the insect language, I can also accept the "bird dropping language": the shape and color of the feces are related to the mood of the birds at that time, so they can also be understood as an outlet for thoughts.
In 2019, Zhu Yingchun also published an insect notebook "Bug Book". The dividing lines in the notebook are twisted and twisted, and they are all the crawling paths of insects.
In his introductory remarks, he wrote: "This book is not a book, and if you are willing to climb the grid with bugs, it may become a book." ”
Bug Book
Zhu Yingchun is often regarded as a neurosis, and even some people scold him for "living is a waste of resources", he feels very aggrieved: "Everyone is so stable and mature, life is not interesting!" ”
Why do these "boring and meaningless" designs?
"Because, first there's boredom, and then it's funny."
Just like his bug works, in their leisure time, can bring readers a little smile at the corners of their mouths, then doesn't that become meaningful?