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Stranded Angels Artist's Book by Florence Lanxuan Liu

$45.00
Out of Stock

“December 2024, Henan, Xuchang. I traced the secret life of wigs through this city where human hair and synthetic strands become currency. This zine, Stranded Angels, began as whispers between industrial sewing machines and the women who keep them alive.

I came to document the journey of wigs: how hair snipped from peasants' scalps turns into someone else's fantasy across the ocean. What I found were plastic dolls-mannequins crowned with unfinished hairnets, their painted eyes pried permanently open under the flickering fluorescent lights.

Originally meant to be a hardcover accordion-fold book bound in handmade mulberry paper, these photos now live on dictionary pages thinner than a strand of hair. Fragility, it turns out, wears the story better.

To the small factory owners who opened their doors to a stranger with a camera: thank you for letting me trace the angels along the assembly lines even as most workshops turned us away.

Consider these pages a love letter to the stranded-mothers measuring their braids for the market, workers stitching tomorrow's beauty, mannequins watching their wigs leave for places they will never see.” -Florence Lanxuan Liu

8” x 4.75”

*Consignment item. Not eligible for 10% membership discount. All consignment purchases are final and non-refundable once shipped.

“December 2024, Henan, Xuchang. I traced the secret life of wigs through this city where human hair and synthetic strands become currency. This zine, Stranded Angels, began as whispers between industrial sewing machines and the women who keep them alive.

I came to document the journey of wigs: how hair snipped from peasants' scalps turns into someone else's fantasy across the ocean. What I found were plastic dolls-mannequins crowned with unfinished hairnets, their painted eyes pried permanently open under the flickering fluorescent lights.

Originally meant to be a hardcover accordion-fold book bound in handmade mulberry paper, these photos now live on dictionary pages thinner than a strand of hair. Fragility, it turns out, wears the story better.

To the small factory owners who opened their doors to a stranger with a camera: thank you for letting me trace the angels along the assembly lines even as most workshops turned us away.

Consider these pages a love letter to the stranded-mothers measuring their braids for the market, workers stitching tomorrow's beauty, mannequins watching their wigs leave for places they will never see.” -Florence Lanxuan Liu

8” x 4.75”

*Consignment item. Not eligible for 10% membership discount. All consignment purchases are final and non-refundable once shipped.

Florence Lanxuan Liu (she/her) is a visual artist based in Shanghai, China. She holds a BFA in Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Printmedia from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work ranges from artists’ books and prints to sculptures and installations that are highly process and material-based. Through creating objects that play with images of flesh and skin, and materiality that attempts to reflect and investigate bodily processes, the work reveals the tenderness and the vulnerability of human beings. Intertwined fibers, innumerable moments of puncturing and sewing, and the act of bruising result in the fragility of the fibers mended into something stronger. The suggestion of shed skin and lost hair is evidence of aging and renewal that becomes a record of transformation. The raw and visceral flesh transfigures into an encounter of haunting beauty. Essentially, these bodily objects are self-portraits that capture the state of being as her body travels through phases in life.
FlorenceLiu.com | Instagram: @uiLecnerolF

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