2024
“Poetry by the Barbarian” Exhibition Visual Identity
This was a group exhibition organised by the ASE Foundation in Shanghai in 2024. Curator Xu Zhen and producer Zhang Qiong used the exhibition to explore how artists might respond to a world shaped by shifting geopolitical relations, increasingly intense competition and the rapid development of artificial intelligence. Within this context, the participating artists were framed as “barbarians” — figures willing to step outside established conventions, resist being confined by reality, and create new values for a new era. A large proportion of the works in the exhibition also used text as their primary medium.
I saw these artists as being similar to poets during the Renaissance. If we think of the present as the beginning of a new era, then their works become a way of writing traces of change into the larger picture of history.
From this, I developed the visual concept of treating the exhibition as a scroll — somewhere between a painting scroll and a book of poetry. The poster became a page from this imagined collection of “poems” written by the barbarians.
Because the idea of Poetry by the Barbarian is rooted in the present, I didn’t want the visual language to feel purely traditional. Instead, I combined the structure of a classical scroll with more contemporary references. Some elements were drawn from imagery commonly associated with AI-generated visuals, such as shells and butterflies. At the same time, several of the artists in the exhibition have a strong sense of playfulness in their work, so I also brought some of that mischievous quality into the visual system.
Art Direction & Graphic Design: Suzy Chan
2024
《野蠻人寫詩》 展览視覺識別
這是 ASE 基金會於 2024 年在上海舉辦的一場群展。展覽討論藝術家如何面對地緣政治、競爭加劇與 AI 快速發展的當下，並將參展藝術家視為一群「野蠻人」——不被既有規則限制，嘗試為新的時代創造新的價值。展覽中也有不少作品以文字作為主要媒介。
我把這些藝術家聯想到文藝復興時期的詩人。如果現在正是一個新時代的開始，那他們的作品，就像是在歷史裡留下正在發生的變化。
因此，我把整個展覽想像成一幅介於長卷與詩集之間的「卷軸」，海報則像是這本「野蠻人詩集」中的其中一頁。
視覺上，我不希望它太傳統，所以把古典卷軸的結構和當代圖像混在一起，例如 AI 圖像裡常見的貝殼、蝴蝶，也加入了一些藝術家作品中本身帶有的幽默和玩味感。
藝術指導&平面設計: Suzy Chan
