Dough Press

Among the Urban Grids is an artist book that captures the “clothes-drying” scenes in the old alleyways of Shanghai, which are gradually being replaced by high-rise buildings due to large-scale urban renovation. Like the city itself, these scenes undergo a continuous cycle of change, from new to old and from old to new. The hanging clothes interspersed throughout the cityscape serve as coordinates that connect the “body” with the “city’s infrastructure,” intertwining Shanghai’s local history, culture, and collective memory.

In January of 2024, on the cusp of Chinese New Year, I found myself drawn back to Anchang Water Town - a place steeped in history with an odd combination of commercialized shops, tourists, and a living community. Nestled within this unique town lies a captivating annual event: the meat-curing season. With a stable amount of local soy sauce produced as one of Anchang’s specialties, cured meat are more so a by-product but attracts more attention because of its unique interactions with the architecture and the people. The distinctive aroma of soy sauce and cured meat permeates the air. As I navigated the narrow alleyways, trying to avoid the hanging meat, I was struck by the ingenuity of the townspeople in utilizing their surroundings for this yearly ritual. Through the act of '晒(shai)' - to hang, to exhibit, to expose - I witnessed a community coming together to create a vibrant and temporary installation. Inspired by this display, I have endeavored to capture and share the essence of this tradition in the form of a book. By documenting and reproducing the art of hanging, my hope is to preserve and continue the tradition of ‘晒(shai)’.

Two Chairs & A Ladder is an artist’s book by Florence Lanxuan Liu. It was inspired by her journey across different cities in China, witnessing the tradition of sausage curing by various households. She believes that the ways of sausage hanging show us how people intelligently utilize both private and public space, as well as mundane structures and furniture, to create a vital, functional, and temporary installation. The word “晒” in Chinese means both ‘to hang’ and ‘to expose/exhibit’. Inspired by this wordplay, “Two Chairs & A Ladder” documents one of the encounters of sausage hanging with an accordion text block held by a hardcover, without any glue binding the pages together. The artist invites you to interact with the book’s structure with a creative mindset and to explore the dynamic relationship between art and everyday objects.

Stranded Angels documents Florence Lanxuan Liu's 2024 odyssey through Xuchang, China—the global nexus of human hair trade. These black-and-white photographs dissect the wig industry's hidden veins: mothers weighing their braids at market scales, workers stitching beauty into synthetic wefts, and mannequins whose wigs vanish toward horizons they'll never glimpse. Printed on paper as fragile as the stories it carries, the zine becomes an elegy for the stranded—those caught between rusted machinery and the world's insatiable hunger for perfection.