Mr. Chen Zhong, a Shenyanger, was born in Shenyang, but moved to Beijing with his family as a teenager in the late 80’s. Now he is a graphic designer with his own studio Qiexianshe (切线社). Here, with a piece of fountain ink pen calligraphy entitled Shenyang and My Life and My Design, he reflects on relocation, space, childhood memory, place names, art, inspiration, and design.

“As the old saying goes: The place where you live makes the person who you are, it is very difficult for me to forget the time I spent in Shenyang as a young person. Once in a while, I still slip into my Shenyang accent. Although I’ve lived in Beijing much longer than I had in Shenyang, Shenyang is still the place where I was born.

The Lighted Soccer Field, China Theater, Sun Yat-sen Park, The Athletic Department, Zhao Mausoleum, Korean War Soldiers’ Cemetery… These are the place names I used to mention from time to time when I was little. Some have changed their names now and some have not. But they are still in my memory, working together with my life experience to influence my life and my design.

A life without the local flavor is a boring life, a design without life is empty. Shenyang is an important element embedded in my life and my design.

Shenyang, My Life and My Design, Chen Zhong”

 

For the past two decades or so, Chen Zhong has been creating a long-term art project. At the beginning of each Chinese lunar new year, he would write the auspicious spring festival couplets in black ink on red paper and send them to friends all over the world, from those in other parts of the city, to those in other provinces, other countries, and other continents. The recipients would then post them around their doors, where the couples are designed for, and take a picture of them and send them back to him. He then would create an album of those images for each year. He said this idea of art travelling across the space and then returning in a new creation might be attributed to his own moving experience from Shenyang to Beijing, thousands of miles apart, as a youngster.