Typography of Body
工作坊：关于身体和空间的想象
2025
Photo: Elaine, OW SPACE, Shunde, Guangdong
Workshop (2025)
Keywords: Community Work, paper-cutting, collective writing, femal history, agency
Organizer: OWSPACE (单向空间), Shunde, Guangdong, China
Participants: Bao Erye, Elaine, Guo Yanzi, Sitao, Zhang Fen, Zhang Haitao, Zhao Shi
(with respect, participants are addressed by their chosen names)
At the invitation of One-Way Space Bookstore, the artist designed this workshop drawing from several years of research on self-comb women and Gu Po houses. In this process, she engaged in ongoing dialogue with 32 volunteers recruited through open calls. These exchanges offered new insights into women’s bodies and social positions, shifting her focus from communal living architecture back to the body itself—revealing the profound connection between space and body.
Inspired by oral histories of women and contemporary conversations on gender, marriage, aging, and public space, the artist invites participants to co-create a “body landscape” using large-scale paper collage. This process seeks to empower the private body and reimagine its agency in shaping public life.
Each participant will create an individual collage and contribute to a collective piece through writing and final assembly, resulting in a shared artwork that preserves these reflections as a collaborative community archive.
Photo: Elaine, OW SPACE, Shunde, Guangdong