Lost / Found is a tribute to Chinese immigrants worldwide who struggle to define their own identity as they hide away their cultural customs and traditions in the process of assimilating to a foreign society. The publication is the embodiment of the state of confusion and experience of sitting on the fence between identities, shining light to what Chinese immigrants go through and how the most mundane things look and are done differently.
Lost / Found is a tribute to Chinese immigrants worldwide who struggle to define their own identity as they hide away their cultural customs and traditions in the process of assimilating to a foreign society. The publication is the embodiment of the state of confusion and experience of sitting on the fence between identities, shining light to what Chinese immigrants go through and how the most mundane things look and are done differently.
With the book sleeve on, Lost / Found looks nothing out of the ordinary - as if using common conventions of books: portrait orientated, perfect bound - just like how Chinese immigrants put on a mask and try to fit into a foreign society. But under the facade, is a vast disparation concealed and hidden away. Upon revelation, the actual book is Chinese stab-stitched and landscape orientated.
Both sides of the sleeve is printed with the book title, one of each in Chinese and English, instead of just one side of it, making it able to be placed both ways, symbolic of how Chinese immigrants belong to both sides of the two different cultures.
The use of random mixed stock (deliberately with Colorplan's China White and Pristine White), inverted placements of bilingual texts adds on to the deliberately confusing experience of reading the publication. The book can be read from both front to back and back to front; its cover and contents would either gradually fade or become apparent, depending on who the reader is.
Tracing paper is used within the publication to produce micro-interactions with the pages that subtly communicate and convey the theme of 'fading out/in' and gradually being 'lost/found'.
