You didn’t see that coming, did you!? Collaged pop-up books are already fabulous, but then, hold on, what’s that, is it … a gigantic pop-up book installation!?!? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! This is the work of Colette Fu. She is one of the artists in the “pa•per” show {that opens at Paradigm Gallery, Philadelphia on April 26th} that I wrote about yesterday. She’s based in Philadelphia, but has done extensive traveling through Asia… I love this story from Colette’s site:

“For 6 months, I traveled between Shanghai and select minority areas in Inner Mongolia, Northwest Xinjiang Province, Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Zhejiang Provinces. Traveling through the mountainous Yi landscape, one old Yi man told me, “Although an eagle flies far into the distance, its wings will fold back. For the Yi, the ultimate goal of life is to find the path of your ancestors.” Another Yi man advised me, “Don’t follow the black road, which is madness, dampness, illness and the ghost road. You should follow the white road, which leads you back to your ancestors.” Constructing pop-ups allows me to combine intuitive design and technical acuity with my love of traveling as I try to understand the world around me. With pop-up books I want to eliminate the boundaries between people, book, installation, photography, craft, sculpture….”

Beautiful. Also beautiful, a peek at her work in progress:

So, so fantastic! Her exhibition, titled “We Are Tiger Dragon People”, is currently showing at the Taubman Museum of Art {Virginia} until September 8, 2019.