Enter The Bad Object

Enter The Bad Object is an ongoing art self-publication project that documents the currently active space-making practices of the Chinese community in New York City through self-organizations. It comprises a series of interviews with the founders of these projects or organizations, exploring their concepts, motives, and journeys regarding how and why they chose to create space, and how content indolence is achieved through financial sustainability. 

The methodology is process-driven, highlighting the context of the research process itself and the continually transforming nature of these participating projects. It began with keywords like “Chinese” and “space,” not to territorialize or fixate a narrative with seemingly universal concepts as heterogeneous onto-epistemologies, but to share the complexities and fragilities behind them through textual and visual storytelling. 

The publication will be in a folder format, featuring each organization in a pamphlet that can be added, removed, or rearranged, granting more agency to the audience. Both graphic and product design will serve as infrastructural structures that embrace changes along the process, rather than aestheticizing an archival tomb. Thus, this project also makes space for the spaces involved, aiming to foster potential connections and collaborations such as public programs and events. 

For more details, pleaser visit www.tianran.space