Projects from Jianping Fang
name
Jianping Fang (Fangjianping)
country
china
university
Central Academy Of Fine Arts
department
Graphic Design
university address
BEIJING,CHINA
100101 BEIJING
university country
china
url
id
0014577
title
<Fang Shi dictionary>
professor(s)
none
rank
-
tags
year of making
2010
uploaded
2011-02-20 11:44:11
Fang Jianping began an in-depth study into the Chinese written language and embarked on an ambitious project to find ways of evolving it. Taking his understanding of Chinese characters as pictograms rooted in an ancient worldview, Fang sought to create new characters that would express current-day concepts, though in a way that is derived from the old.
His resulting graduation project was the Fang Shi Dictionary, a ongoing and still-expanding book that presents new characters based on the structural systems of the existing ones. Much as spoken languages are living things, constantly changing and adapting to contemporary realities, Fang has breathed new life into China’s rich written heritage. Furthermore, for Get It Louder, he is displaying his dictionary on a school table backgrounded by a blackboard. In this classroom-like setting, the dictionary prompts viewers to think of learning not as an exercise in passive memorization but rather a process that requires active engagement.
