Relatives' bond is built upon emotions and blood ties. When emotions fade, the objective existence of blood ties still sustains the bond. My cyanotype installation and typeface design explores the relationship between my father and I, demonstrating that genetic inheritance and blood ties remain constant despite the growing emotional distance.
I chose the cyanotype installation as a medium of expression to highlight the replication process of genetic inheritance. The production process of cyanotype is a kind of image copying process, similar to the copying mechanism in gene transmission. wrapping paper is similar to gene chain, and will be used as an element to simulate the gene chain combined with the cyanotypet board to simulate the process of gene reproduction. By adjusting the distance between the wrapping paper and the cyanotype board, it conceptually demonstrates the growing emotional distance between my father and I. As the distance increases, the pattern becomes blurred. As the distance increases, the pattern becomes blurred, but the process of exposure to the cyanotype and the image that will always be present on the cyanotype plate (even if it becomes blurred) symbolise that genetic inheritance is objective and inherent, not selectable and unchangeable.
Keloids, as a hereditary skin condition, is an externalised expression of the genetic inheritance between my father and me, and it became the inspiration for my type design. I designed two sets of typefaces inspired by simulating the appearance of Keloids as well as its microscopic form. These fonts use styrofoam that has a similar form and colour to Keloids, embedding the power of genetic inheritance into the font.
The carrier of the book is chosen to be fabric, which is woven by thousands of threads. The element of thread is always used to express the connection between people. The inside of the book is combined with a cyanotype device to produce five reproductions of the wrapping paper at different distances. The binding of the book mimics the spiral structure of a genetic chain, with strips of fabric interspersed with two pieces of fabric, allowing the fabrics to form a spiral shape with each other. Instead of using the traditional page-turning format, the book is presented as a long vertical piece, which allows readers to observe more intuitively the changes in the five different distances of the cyanotype prints.
