[English]
Hello everyone
I am Kaikai
I am a book maker
What is different from most editors is
my authors are a group of
children and teenagers aged 5 to 17 years old
The way we obtain information now
has become more and more
faster and faster
For many young people
reading and books have become
The most efficient way for us to obtain information
Today I want to share the tool of books with you
Take everyone to look at books and writing again
Rediscover the ancient medium of books
I also want to take you to see some of the creations and expressions that my children and I
use books as a medium
Among these works
In addition to some magazine forms
there are also some handmade books with special structures
These works can all be called artist books
You may be a little confused when you first hear this concept
Here I quote an American art critic
He is also a curator
His name is Lucy Lippard
He said that an artist book is neither an art book
nor a book about art
It focuses on the formal conception of the book
and then combines a series of closely related ideological images
Placed in a portable carrier
It is restrained in form
but ambitious in scope
I founded SHU SHU Studio in 2018
We focus on society, education and art
Use books as a medium for creation and practice
So far
We have completed three issues of the magazine in total
These magazines are all created by teenagers themselves
Show and discuss their lives and opinions
Pod will focus on some serious social issues
The first of these three issues is about violence
The second issue is called Who is the Witch
This issue focuses on feminism
Then the third issue is "The Wall"
When we finish these magazines
I will participate in the art book fair with the children
At the book fair, these works were liked by many readers
and also got some opportunities for official publication
But there are still many people who are surprised
Why do children pay attention to
heavy topics like violence and feminism
Do they have the ability to participate
In fact, I want to say
Our world does not only belong to adults
Because children are also participants and bystanders of this world
Therefore, I will once again quote the answer of 13-year-old Jiajia
when facing reporters
She said that adults should not underestimate themselves too much
Everyone has these moments of thinking in their childhood
In 2021
I once shared "Violence"
and the two issues of "Who is the Witch"
Today I want to share with you the third issue of the magazine "Wall"
Why do we use the wall
as the theme of our magazine
Because we see
now that whether it is differences in skin color, ethnicity, beliefs
or differences in concepts and positions
the gap in communication between people is constantly widening
and our increasing dependence on smartphones
and social media
has brought us into a seemingly open world
In fact, it is a more narrow world
These are three 13-year-old girls at that time
From the right are Jiajia, Doudou, and Strawberry
And adults including me
face a common confusion
We need to ask the world
We first traced the original meaning of the wall
Jiajia dismantled the oracle bone inscriptions on the wall
We can see
The wall was actually originally a barn
used to store food
But we want to explore the broader properties of the wall
to see the barriers between people
and a series of communication problems
This is a comic created by 13-year-old Jiajia
It's called "Mask"
In the painting, the girl named Xiaotong returns home
Then her mother came towards her
She was about to take off the mask
but she suddenly remembered
After taking off the mask a few days ago
had a lot of conflicts with her mother
So she put on the mask
and started talking to her mother happily
Waiting for her to return to the room
She took off the mask
and finally became her true self
Then she threw her schoolbag aside
Then he lay on the bed and went to sleep
But in another room
her mother was also in front of the dressing table
took off her mask
We also invited 10-year-old Zhirou
to create this cartoon for us
In this painting
Zhirou once told her mother
She had a friend on Sunday
Invite her to your home
Then her mother happily agreed to her
But a few days later
her mother told Zhirou while driving
I have something to do
I can't go
Zhirou cried aggrievedly
Her mother felt that Zhirou didn't understand her
Then she was very angry
When Zhirou saw this, she quickly apologized to her mother
But it was too late
Then her mother refused to communicate with Zhirou anymore
Even back home
No matter how Zhirou apologizes to her mother
Wants to communicate
But it's all in vain
This cartoon comes to the last scene
Zhirou vividly expresses the
difficulty and powerlessness after communicating with her mother to no avail
...
At the same time
Jiajia and Doudou are also thinking about the situation of adults
Jiajia wrote in the magazine
She said that adults in my eyes seem to be very stubborn
unable to listen to others
unwilling to accept new ideas
and very difficult to communicate
So Doudou and Jiajia drew these two paintings
They tried to understand them from an adult perspective
Or maybe it is the pressure of work and life
Both of which make adults feel tired
Doudou also began to reflect on how as teenagers
they shielded and isolated the world
They wore these huge headphones
and various electronic screens
She also analyzed the reasons why teenagers isolate the world
There is this kind of parental urging and nagging about academics
There are countless
such interest classes and training classes
These things are constantly
Compressing the self-space of teenagers
and forcing them to have nowhere to escape
Doudou also began to do a research on the history of headphones from another angle
...
Through this process, she wanted to see
how machines and people influence each other
and how they shape each other
Then through modern people's dependence on headphones
she designed a futuristic headset
This is the principle she drew of her design
There are also applicable scenarios for this headset
The pair on the left
means that if you don’t wear this headset
you will always have to listen to your parents’ nagging
But if you own this headset
you can turn a deaf ear to these nagging
In fact, this product has side effects
After heavy use
Even people are becoming more and more alienated by machines
and then turned into this kind of cyberman
During the epidemic, online classes
also became the most complete physical isolation
The children all felt physically and mentally exhausted
So we invited a 13-year-old girl Duoduo
to write this article for us
And this is an excerpt from the article
She said that online classes made me lazy
I often go to bed late and get up late
I often scroll through my phone with nothing to do during the day
I start to regret it at night
But the next day is the same
I look at my friends
and find that their situation is not good either
Some are isolated
Forced to stay in school for more than a month
You can even smell the emotions in the air
Their mental state is as stretched as a string
It may break at any time
This is a 5 and a half year old thumbtack
An illustration for this article
In this illustration
He was very happy on the first day
Eating fruit and looking at the computer
But by the fifth day
he was already very irritable
His hair stood up
By the tenth day
he was already holding an ax angrily
wanting to destroy the computer
This section is about the impact of social media on people
This painting was completed by Jiajia
This painting is about the information cocoon room
The girl in the painting is watching a beauty video
Then she manually clicked a like
This like sucked the girl into a space
There are constantly beauty videos being pushed to her in this space
This painting is about this girl
She was lying on the sofa and looking at her mobile phone leisurely
When she saw three breaking news
She was in the excitement of a melon eater
Wanted to share it with her friends
When she got downstairs
she found that these people were actually talking about the same topic
We have actually realized that
this kind of homogeneous information and content
has made our world more and more boring
and we have gradually lost
the desire to actively obtain information
At the beginning of this issue
We also did some research on physical walls
Once a high wall divided a country
This is the Berlin Wall
It seems to be widely known
But we are still curious
and want to find out what this wall separates
We want to put aside the kind of history textbook-like presentation
turned our perspective to
the ordinary people in the historical situation at that time
We verified it through a lot of reading
and also watched the movie "Goodbye Lenin" together
We just wanted to understand the grief and trauma of ordinary people at that time through various angles
...
under this kind of division
This is the "Goodbye Lenin" drawn by Strawberry
A classic shot in the movie
We also cast our perspective on the US-Mexico border wall
This is two American architects in 2019
Three pink seesaws erected on the US-Mexico border wall
Strawberry gave this art installation a new artistic treatment
She also expressed our common desire for this through this painting
...
Through this process
we look back at history
Think about the distance
Then combined with our situation at the time
we discovered
In fact, history is leading us
to re-examine our current life and ourselves
History is like a huge experience bank
which contains countless wisdom and mistakes
By understanding these historical lessons
we can understand the current society and personal behavior more clearly
When this magazine is finally completed
Through the creation of this magazine, we slowly unearthed some of the
...
dilemmas and disadvantages hidden in daily life
and then thought about it and presented it
The children also
completed self-exploration
Last year our magazine
also went further afield
These were art book fairs in London and Dublin respectively
In addition, some art spaces in Europe were also displayed
The fourth issue of Pod
Its theme is about Lu Xun
We selected 4 articles by Lu Xun
Use the current perspective of young people to create a new interpretation
One of the more special articles is "Diary of a Madman"
The children made a complete adaptation of it
and designed a madman board game
I hope that I can have the opportunity to tell more people about this book in the future
After reading the above
I believe you can see
In fact, young people are completely capable of expressing
and in-depth expression
But in fact, there are many children who have just come to me to write books
If you ask him his views on some issues
he will also say he doesn’t know or have no idea
But expression does not come out of thin air
Expression needs practice
Here I share a quote from Nietzsche
Look at science with the lens of an artist
and look at art with the lens of life
So what is the lens of life
I think it is that we can truly feel life
and the small things around us
Because any sincere thoughts and emotions
are worth sharing and expressing
12-year-old Suisui is writing a book with me
She was very envious of the magazines made by the older children just now
She was also worried that she did not have deep expression
But by chatting with her
I found that she likes Yiwu small commodities and retro snacks very much
So we made her favorite snacks
into a 2025 calendar of good food and drink
She also went through this process
and confirmed that she can also draw well
And can make works that impress others
The 8-year-old thumbtack is my own child
It is impossible for him to follow me to make a book
But he always takes out some paper at home
Pin it up
Make it into a book
Then create a story
He will also spend several months
creating on this long piece of paper
The picture on the right is a documentary he watched after watching "The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru"
He created a war between countries
He imagined each country as an animal
This is the enlarged detail inside
France is a proud rooster
Germany is an elephant
There are typos and spelling errors in it
In fact, when he drew these paintings
He is not drawing at all
nor making a book
In a sense
he is actually using the tool of drawing
to record the things he likes
So whenever the children who make books with me are not confident
and feel that they are not good at drawing
When the drawings do not look good
I will take out the thumbtack works to show them
David Hockney once said this in
"History of Pictures"
...
He said that all pictures are descriptions of viewing
This kind of viewing is actually the observation, understanding and narrative of the world
For teenagers
In fact, they will face many confusions in the process of growing up
Who am I
What are my interests and values
Facing different expectations from the outside world
Should they cater to or be true to themselves
They may also experience loneliness and low self-esteem.
and uncertainty about the future
may even question authority, social rules
and traditional concepts
And artist books can
provide a container for these views
and then get closer to oneself through sorting and editing a book
to find one's inner thoughts and feelings
Especially feelings
This is a particularly weak point in our rational society
...
In fact, the earlier we can find it, the more necessary it is
Another project of SHU SHU
has 12 independent small books
The theme of each book is a child
A view and feeling of one's own life
This "My World" comes from 10-year-old An An
An An is a child who loves reading
But he has no idea how to express
Especially writing is a headache
When he was working on a book with me
he would always share with me his favorite games
One day he was very excited to talk to me about
Minecraft games
He was very excited
Then I said stop for a moment
Let’s try to write what you just wanted to say to me
Write it down in words
See if it works
Then I said to write some more by the way
In addition to the game
Also write about your dissatisfaction with the real world
An An wrote two articles happily
It was just two pages of text
When he finished writing, he discovered
It turns out that I can also write so many words
Then we used these words
to transform it into pictures
Then I completed the book "Minecraft"
This book is actually a comparison between the game world
and the real world
This is my world
and my world
Everyone knows that Minecraft
translated into Chinese is my world
In my world
I have good friends who chat together
On the left is An Anzai and his friends
Talking about Minecraft games
Through this game
He made good friends in school
You will make a lot of money in my world
In my world you must abide by the rules
Because An An plays games
You need to strictly abide by the game time
And in my world
No one follows the rules
This is An An's record of his online class
The time has seriously exceeded
But the teacher is still unmoved
Continue to teach his class
In my world
My mind is full of imagination
But in my world, I am worried about homework
This is An An's assembly of various homework
into a homework killer
Then in my world, war can destroy everything
There is a date written in the upper right corner of the painting
This is the time when the Russo-Ukrainian war started
At that time, Anan had
great fear and worry about the war
Then I asked him what his worries about the war were
Then he told me
He felt that war can destroy everything
And reconstruction is so difficult
And in my world
You can start again if you make a mistake
In my world
Nucleic acid has become a daily routine
In my world
Fireworks are gorgeous
And finally my world
By writing this book
An An needs to keep looking back
His own life and self-feelings
He also became clearer through this book
His own attitude towards games and life
When he finished this book
he said something like this
He said that he hopes my relatives and friends can see it
My games are not in vain
This book is from the 8-year-old girl Shuang Er
Shuang Er's mother especially likes knitting sweaters
She has many knitting tools
Then one day she went to her mother and said
Mom, where are you?
Mom was knitting balls of wool
Then she went to play alone
After a while
Mom, where are you
Mom was still knitting balls of wool
She went to deal with a train accident
Mom, where were you
Mom was still knitting balls of wool
Then this time she went to put out a fire
Mom, where were you
Mom has been knitting wool balls
Then she went to repair the space
Then mother came
Mom asked Shuang Er, where are you
Shuang Er raised her head and said
Mom, I am here
Then her mother stretched out her hands
and took out the woolen doll she knitted for Shuang Er
Through this book, Shuanger recorded
her daily interactions with her mother
In fact, Shuanger always knew that her mother was there
But the child needs to constantly ask
Where are you, mother
to determine his or her position in the world
It is also because of this mutual confirmation
that children and mothers have gained a greater freedom in their own worlds
...
Last year, the social work department of Fudan Pediatrics in Shanghai came to me
They wanted me to do an online training for them
to teach them some methods of making books
A few months later
they led a group of children with diabetes
to do a workshop
They shared it with me
One of the children wrote this book
called "An Unforgettable Thing"
This book is about this little girl
Her old silicone base was used up
Then her mother bought a new silicone base
But when she was about to apply this silicone base that night
she felt a little flustered inexplicably
As expected
Her skin felt tingling.
Her arm was bleeding too
She really couldn't hold it back
Then she shed tears
Then she blamed herself very much
Thinking that maybe she had moved
But her mother told her very gently
No, don't be afraid
She was very moved after hearing this
This was the unforgettable thing for her
I was also very moved after reading this book
I am very happy
I can provide such a tool
so that children can record their own lives
Even if this kind of life
has such real pain
It started last year
I started to try to do some artist book workshops
This is Strawberry who was 14 years old at the time
She likes skateboarding very much
Then she used this flag book method
to draw some details of the skateboard she liked
and some movements while skateboarding
She also used sandpaper to present the texture of the skateboard
This is 10-year-old Qing Huan
His mother especially likes running
Once she went to participate in the Guangzhou Marathon
He also used this method
to record the moments before the game for her mother
This row is the countdown to the competition
The middle row is some preparations made by his mother for the competition
The last row is his mother's various running shoes
In the end, his mother ran to the finish line
and got the medal
This book was written by 10-year-old Xiao Yu
through never ending
A small book about a vicious cycle
This book is about a boy
He got zero points in the exam
We can read
Then his mother said you go do your homework
Then he did it late at night
which made him very sleepy in class the next day
As a result, he got zero points in the math test again
Then his mother said you continue to do your homework
This is how the book is read
It just can't stop
This book was also written by Xiaoyu
This book is about a boy
who faced different ways of being treated
and then grew up to be a different person
This is how this book looks at
This book was created by 10-year-old Yingying
She likes Hayao Miyazaki very much
She used a scene from the movie "What Kind of Life Do You Want to Live"
for the creation
When she finished using the flag book method
the sense of traveling through time and space came to her face
The children were so happy to get such a book
...
As you can see
In fact, artist books have very rich functions
and great freedom
It can not only combine text and images
but also innovate through form, material, binding and layout
Breaking through the boundaries of traditional books
to carry our different thoughts and expressions
The last book I want to share
comes from 8-year-old Thumbtack
His book is called This is Tummy
This is an image of Tummy he drew
Tummy is actually a doll that Thumbtack picked up in Yunnan three years ago
...
In the past three years, Tummy has become his most caring friend
He also sets March 3rd every year as Tummy's birthday
It is March 3rd this month
We also held a special party
This is like the allusion of Santa Claus, do you believe
...
We adults are also trying hard
to cherish children's childhood imagination
Last year I found out that he drew such a picture
He randomly typed 16 grids on this paper
It turned out that he drew Tummy in different states
This one is Tummy crying
Because he got zero points in the exam
His mother was training him
This is Tummy eating
This is Tummy and Buzz Lightyear
This is Tummy becoming a robber and being chased by the police
This is Tummy getting married
This is Tummy, she is an animal
Then I made this painting into a book like this
This book is actually folded from a piece of A4 paper
These are the front and back of this A4 paper
Don't underestimate how mini it is
In fact, it has three spaces
If we read it normally from the cover
we can see the various states of Tummy just now
If we open it from the space above
we can see what Tummy really looks like as a doll
Then we came to the last space
We can see the story written by thumbtacks
The story of his and Tummy's acquaintance
Through this structure
The structure of a book written on paper
We created a three-dimensional space for this book
It was like we entered a small exhibition hall
Then we walked around in this space
Then we went to see Tummy's story
This little book
also gained a lot of love and resonance from adults at the book fair
It turns out that
many adults still have and cherish
their own invisible friends
Their names are Abeibei
I want to say
The world of children is so rich
Their thoughts are simple
but so profound
And artist books are full of adventure and imagination
Both the creators themselves and the audience
have been led into another way of seeing the world
I hope that I can always take the children
into this world
Through artist books
lead them to see themselves
sort out and express
But making books has never been the purpose
I hope that each of us individuals
fragmented information can find a fulcrum
suspended in this
to make some passionate connections with the world
Thank you all