Pak Sheung Chuen: Page 22 (Half Folded Library)

“Page 22 (Half Folded Library)” is a site-specific installation in a public library. I folded all the p.22 of half of the entire books in a library. I pretended reading a book. At the same time, I folded slinkingly on a small corner of p.22 at that book. I folded one book, skipped one book, and then folded another book until I folded half of the entire collections in that library. There have 188 bookshelves and almost 31000 books in the library. Therefore, 15500 books were folded. I worked on and off in the library from 2008-3-6 to 2008-6-24. Actual working days are almost 1 month. The media of this art piece is a library. If audiences want to see the artwork, they need to go inside the library or borrow the books out.

—Pak Sheung Chuen

About Pak Sheung Chuen (白雙全)

Born in 1977 in Fujian, Pak Sheung Chuen immigrated to Hong Kong in 1984 and graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2002, he currently lives and works in Hong Kong.

Pak Sheung Chuen’s practice might be described as immaterial, everyday, process-based, and collaborative. He draws from his daily life experiences in and around Hong Kong to create playful, yet thoughtful, works that upturn ordinary everyday experiences into unexpected surprises and encounters. Although never visually spectacular, Pak’s projects reconfigure a personal system that involves bodily actions and effectively challenges the existing social logic and commodity-based culture. His art is almost invisible, almost impossible to document, but manages to explore the human condition in all its complexities and with loving precision.

Image and Text: the shop, ©Authors, the shop, 2019