Do You Speak Second Gen? Artist's Book by Sophie Wang
This piece was featured in the November 2023 issue of The Fore Edge, a quarterly newsletter from MCBA that highlights new artist’s books and zines for collections, universities, and libraries. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, there is a sign up available here.
“What /is/ the second generation a generation of? One of the things I thought a lot about as I originally made this zine is that there is no single or universal answer to that question. This zine contains (12 of) my experiences with my "home" language that in their specificity might be relatable, but ultimately are just single facets of the infinitely complex and multitudinal experience of growing up as the child of immigrants. So printing this zine on transparencies overlaid on one another which together read "the second generation is a generation of [something completely indecipherable/incomprehensible]" felt like a truer, more valid way to share my thoughts about my experience than on opaque paper pages that stand alone as definitive statements.” - Sophie Wang
The zine edition is available here.
11” x 9.5”
*Consignment item. Not eligible for 10% membership discount. All consignment purchases are final and non-refundable once shipped.
This piece was featured in the November 2023 issue of The Fore Edge, a quarterly newsletter from MCBA that highlights new artist’s books and zines for collections, universities, and libraries. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, there is a sign up available here.
“What /is/ the second generation a generation of? One of the things I thought a lot about as I originally made this zine is that there is no single or universal answer to that question. This zine contains (12 of) my experiences with my "home" language that in their specificity might be relatable, but ultimately are just single facets of the infinitely complex and multitudinal experience of growing up as the child of immigrants. So printing this zine on transparencies overlaid on one another which together read "the second generation is a generation of [something completely indecipherable/incomprehensible]" felt like a truer, more valid way to share my thoughts about my experience than on opaque paper pages that stand alone as definitive statements.” - Sophie Wang
The zine edition is available here.
11” x 9.5”
*Consignment item. Not eligible for 10% membership discount. All consignment purchases are final and non-refundable once shipped.
This piece was featured in the November 2023 issue of The Fore Edge, a quarterly newsletter from MCBA that highlights new artist’s books and zines for collections, universities, and libraries. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, there is a sign up available here.
“What /is/ the second generation a generation of? One of the things I thought a lot about as I originally made this zine is that there is no single or universal answer to that question. This zine contains (12 of) my experiences with my "home" language that in their specificity might be relatable, but ultimately are just single facets of the infinitely complex and multitudinal experience of growing up as the child of immigrants. So printing this zine on transparencies overlaid on one another which together read "the second generation is a generation of [something completely indecipherable/incomprehensible]" felt like a truer, more valid way to share my thoughts about my experience than on opaque paper pages that stand alone as definitive statements.” - Sophie Wang
The zine edition is available here.
11” x 9.5”
*Consignment item. Not eligible for 10% membership discount. All consignment purchases are final and non-refundable once shipped.
Sophie Wang (or Shuf, she/her) is a zine gremlin currently based in the Twin Cities. She makes zines/comics/art that bring a critical power lens to science, technology, epistemology, and forms of knowledge-making, and an experiential lens to her second generation Chinese American experience and other parts of her life. Her work covers topics ranging from equity and exclusion in science museums to campaign demands against predictive policing in LA. She is also a co-founder of Free Radicals, an activist collective at the intersection of science and social justice. You can find her offline looking at leaves by the water or baking plum crumble, and you can find her online watching Dota 2. If you do find her online, tell her to log off.
