Appropriation Study – Propaganda Picture Books from China, 2015.
8 Archival inkjet prints, 8 Picture books
I appropriated few propaganda picture books from Panjiayuan antique market in Beijing and induced them with new meaning. The new meaning is generated through my half-knowledge of the Chinese history and culture, and a complete ignorance of the Chinese language. These books from 1970’s and 1980’s seem to represent the anachronistic side of the Chinese socio-political atmosphere. The interesting part for me was to see these books through a contemporary lens and judging the images from a global perspective. Not knowing the language, the pictures were my only tools through which I could decipher the narrative hidden in these books. I wanted to understand what ‘meaning’ images generate for an outsider who is not part of a particular culture and how much of re-contextualization can be done with such images. I have altered the Chinese titles of the books with new titles in English.
