a dictionary, a loom, a manifesto, a note, a kite, a phone call, a class, a universe, an echo, a cube, a treehole, some wrapping paper, 3 poems, 6 drinks, 7 letters, 20 snakes, 24 words on personhood, and my mom

Exhibition on view: June 17–August 30
Opening reception: June 17, 6–8pm, artist walkthrough 7pm
Chang Yuchen in conversation with Ross Perlin: August 12, 6–8pm (more)

Printed Matter is pleased to present a dictionary, a loom, a manifesto …, an exhibition on the bookmaking practice of artist and publisher Chang Yuchen. Varied in subject matter, production method, and circulation strategy, Yuchen’s commitment to artists’ books remains constant across her explorations in drawing, writing, performance, textiles, and experimental pedagogy. For Yuchen, bookmaking serves as a vessel for her curiosities, as well as an ongoing exercise in thinking through materials, learning with the hand, and making sense on the page.

a dictionary, a loom, a manifesto … gathers eighteen publications produced by Yuchen between 2012 and 2026, accompanied by prototypes, editions, drafts, and failures, a presentation she has overlaid with her own handwritten reflections on her processes and sources of inspiration.

The installation is anchored by Yuchen’s long-term artwork Coral Dictionary, an iterative print, performance and drawing-based project that explores an original language composed by the artist from coral fragments encountered on a Malaysian island. Over the past six years, Yuchen has translated over 101 sentences from a Malay-Mandarin Chinese-English dictionary into drawings of coral, assigning meaning visually, metaphorically, and emotively in a process Yuchen calls her “feral literacy.” Spanning the gallery walls, a sentence from the series is realized by the artist as a painted mural.

Yuchen, who worked as a staff member at Printed Matter from 2013 to 2020, draws on her learning from years of immersion in Printed Matter’s collection and community. Yuchen sees the exhibition, hosted at Printed Matter as part of our 50th Anniversary celebration, as an opportunity for recalibration and gratitude:

“Initially attracted to the text and images presented in book form, my love gradually extended to the paper and binding that holds them together, and later, through my years working at Printed Matter, to the administrative and retail labor that circulates books and creates encounters. From content to substrate to infrastructure, this centrifugal love manifests in the various shapes and structures my books take, different choreographies of unfolding, as well as in their modes of distribution.” — Chang Yuchen

A program with Yuchen and linguist Ross Perlin will be held at Printed Matter, August 12th, 6–8pm. The conversation will explore the ways Yuchen’s practice intersects with language — spoken, printed, bound, sold, and found on beaches — and consider how it can veer into the real and the imaginary, the useful and the useless. (More)

On the occasion of the exhibition, Printed Matter has published a 4-panel accordion fold booklet with Yuchen, featuring drawings and reflections by the artist on the 18 book works in the show. A folded pocket — printed with a sentence from Coral Dictionary — holds three inserts with the show title, exhibition details, and an inkjet print of two corals.