Voodoo Reading Doll?
Ins: @voodooooodoll
About the 'Witch Coming' book club
The 'Witch Coming' is a book club spontaneously organized by six women temporarily based in Shanghai. We focus on female literature, attempt to create an encounter with the female narrative through tracing 'motherhood in literature' and are concerned with the dual experience of 'being a woman' and 'being seen as a woman'. We also hope to establish intimate female intellectual mutual assistance, to make knowledge no longer oppressive, and create experimental texts that belong to both the 'self' and the 'in common' through learning, exchanging, and reshaping.
“女巫来了”是暂时寄居在上海的，由女性自组织的读书俱乐部，以每周一次的频率相聚。在读书会中，我们专注阅读女性作家的文本， 试图通过寻找“文学中的母亲”与女性叙事相遇，关注生命中“成为女性”和“被看作女性”的双重经验。我们希望以这样的方式建立亲密的女性知识性互助，让知识不再具有压迫性。在学习、穿梭、重塑中，创作出属于自己也属于“共同体”的实验性文本。
About 'Voodoo Reading Doll?'
'Voodoo Reading Doll?' is an independent publication germinated from the spontaneously-organized female book club 'Witch Coming'. It presents the personal writing of the six current members (yy?, jiechen, xindi, corodeco, dan0dan0, zhengfa) in a newspaper-like form. The core idea of the publication is to build women's independent consciousness of writing. Members express literary power from the female perspective in different literary genres: sensitive, detailed, illusory and critical. At the same time, the members added image creation to the visual presentation to form a layout design that echoes the text content. We hope to bring readers a diversified reading experience.
'Voodoo Reading Doll?' can be the contemporary evolution of the immemorial enchantment witchcraft that connected humanity and the taboo of the temporal, or it can be a reinterpretation of the existing world generated by the body posture of reading and expression. We expect to create an intimate and inclusive soft energy space with multi-descent languages.
There are six publications in this series, respectively: Hiking Map by yy?, I gave birth to Mom gave birth to me, Mom killed me killed Mom by jiehcen, Green Tongue by xindi, Toe by corodeco, The letter I wrote to you during sleepless nights by dan0dan0, Fictionary by zhengfa.
《巫读娃娃》是由女性自组织读书会“女巫来了”的成员发展出的第一期中文自出版读物，并以类报纸的方式呈现6名现成员（yy？、jiechen、xindi、corodeco、蛋0蛋0、蒸发）的个人写作。出版物的核心理念围绕构建女性写作的自主意识。成员们分别以不同的文学体裁表达来自女性视角的文学力量：敏感的、细节的、虚幻的、批判的...... 同时在视觉呈现上加入图像创作，形成与内容文本相呼应的版式设计，希望带给读者多元的阅读体验。
《巫读娃娃》可以是远古时人与天地禁忌联结的迷魂巫术在当代的嬗变， 也可以是阅读与表达的身体姿态所带来的对已有的世界的重新解读。 我们期待用多元的文字创造一个亲密包容的软性能量空间。
本次系列出版物共六本，分别为：《徒步地图》作者yy？、《我生了妈妈生了我，妈妈杀了我杀了妈妈》作者jiechen、《绿舌头》作者xindi、《脚月止》作者corodeco、《失眠时写给你的信》作者蛋0蛋0、《 FICTIONARY 迟点》作者蒸发。
Hiking map—yy?
I gave birth to Mom gave birth to me, Mom killed me killed Mom—jiechen
Green tongue—xindi
Toe—corodeco
The letter I wrote to you during sleepless nights—dan0dan0
FICTIONARY—zhengfa
516mm*421mm * 6 copies
digital print
I designed the packaging and cover of this publication issue. The Chinese and English names of 'Voodoo Reading Doll' are marked on the same position on the cover. The members' portraits are taken as the back cover to counter the invasion of the ubiquitous gender gaze from the outside, announcing their resistance to 'institutional discipline internalization'. To better display this concept, we set the publication size similar to the newspaper. For general publications, this book seems excessively large. We hope this design can emphasize the women and women's texts that have always been invisible in public discourse, loud out our voices.
The packaging design uses pure white 300g matte paper to wrap the publications of 6 members. When discussing packaging design with members, everyone hopes to use a clever way so that readers can see our eyes outside the packaging. Therefore, I made an 85mm wide cut in the top half of one side to expose the eyes. It is an uncomfortable and aggressive design, but I wish our readers like it.
In addition, I used heat-sensitive cash register paper to print the preface of each member's writing content and what they want to say to readers, covering the cutting part outside the package so as to increase the level and interactivity of this work.
我设计了这一期出版物的外包装与封皮版式。封面同一位置标有《巫读娃娃》的中文及英文名字，以成员的肖像照为封底，反入侵外部无处不在的性别凝视，宣布她们抵抗“将制度性规训内化”。为了更好的展示这样的设计，我们把出版物的尺寸定为类似报纸的尺寸，对于一般的出版物来讲，这无疑是一个过分大的“书”了，我们希望这样的设计可以强调在公共话语中一直处于隐形的女性及女性文本，大声呼出我们的声音。
外包装设计选用纯白色的300g哑光纸张包裹6本成员的刊物，在与成员们讨论此处设计时，大家希望用一种巧妙的方式让读者在包装外部也能看到我们反击凝视的双眼，因此，我在其中一面上半部分做了85mm宽的切割，暴露出内容出版物封底图像中成员们的眼睛。这是一个让人觉得不适的、具有攻击性的设计，但我希望我们的读者可以喜欢它。
另外，我采用热敏收银纸来打印成员关于本次写作内容的序言以及想对读者说的话，覆盖在包装外部的切割处，以此增加作品的层次和互动性。
The letter I wrote to you during sleepless nights
The letter I wrote to you during sleepless nights is one of the 'Voodoo Reading Doll?' publication series, written and designed by me.
The content of the writing is about the confession of an insomniac. It is written as a letter, hoping to establish a more private contextual space with the reader. Only 'me' and 'you' exist in this intimate space. Where the writing takes place: 'my' bedroom, which has been the private domain of 'mine' for a long time, when the reader reads this 'letter', the identity automatically becomes the 'visitor' of this private room. And this 'visitor' who suddenly enters another's private domain is not an 'intruder' but a 'sympathizer'. The author wants to further point to each reader who reads this letter more specifically in this way and pulls them into this lonely bedroom with insomnia late at night. 'I' connect space and time with words, leading 'sympathizers' to follow 'my' thoughts and soul to the depths of various corners that have never excavated during the day, 'my' thoughts coexist with readers.
Why do 'I' suffer from insomnia? It is a question that can not trace clearly, and no one can answer. However, as a pre-existing phenomenon, insomnia provides clues to the spiritual observation of 'me' in reverse. The physical representation trapped my body but released a soul different from 'me'. As a result, 'I' react to everything around 'me', and this reaction gradually magnifies during the sleepless nights, 'my' self slowly shrinks until 'I' see another 'female' identity of 'myself'; before that, 'I' was just a 'human'. Through this female identity, 'I' realized that the oppression 'I' suffered in the public sphere has continued to the private sphere; it transformed into a negative experience of the body that lingers in every state of 'my' breath, movement, and perception, which is considered vulnerable, wrong, and unforgivable by modern society. These physical signs: anxiety, depression, anger, and other emotions, expand rapidly during insomnia. 'I' am eager to find someone who can share these feelings.
But this is a letter with no address and will never be answered. The information is unilaterally output by the author. She is required to listen to all the advice of people around her during the day and declare the sovereignty of her soul at night. She chose to believe in the power of words and turned these abstract struggles into concrete expressions. The perception fragments confused by insomnia were reorganized and pieced together in words to form a new order.
《失眠时写给你的信》是《巫读娃娃》系列出版物其中的一本，由我写作并设计。
写作的内容是关于一个失眠者的自白，文章以书信的形式书写，希望可以借此与读者建立一个更加私密的语境空间。在这个私密的空间里，只有“我”和“你”。书写所发生的地点：“我”的卧室，作为长期以来“我”个人的私人领域，在读者读到这封“信”开始，身份就自动变成了这间私密房间的“来访者”，而这个突然进入他人私人领域的“来访者”并非是入侵性的，而是“共感者”。作者想要进一步通过这种方式更加具体的指向每一个阅读这篇文章的读者，拉每一个读这篇文章的读者进入这个深夜失眠的寂寞卧室。“我”用文字把空间和时间串联，带领“共感者”跟随“我”的思想、灵魂游走向各个白天不曾被人挖掘的角落深处，“我”的思绪与读者共存。
“我”为什么会失眠？这是一个无法被明确追踪、没有人能回答的问题，但失眠作为一种已经存在的现象，却反向提供给了“我”精神观察的线索。物理的表征困住我的肉体，却释放了一个不同于“我”的灵魂。“我”对周围的一切作出反应，这种反应在失眠的夜里被逐渐放大，自我被逐渐缩小，小到看清了自己的另一个“女性”身份，而在这之前，“我”只是一个“人”。“我”透过这个女性身份感知到了在公共领域所遭受的压迫一直延续至私人领域，它被转化成身体的负面经验徘徊于“我”的每一次呼吸、移动、感知的状态中，这被认为是脆弱的、错误的，是无法被现代社会所原谅的。这些身体的表征：不安，沮丧、愤怒等情绪在失眠的时间里迅速膨胀，“我”渴望找到一个可以共同感受的人。
但这是一封没有地址，永远没有回复的信件，信息是作者单方面输出的，她在白天被要求倾听周围人的一切忠告，在夜晚以要此宣示自己灵魂的主权。她选择相信文字的力量，把这些抽象的挣扎变成具体的表达，因失眠而混乱的感知碎片在文字中被重组拼凑出了一个新的秩序。
Excerpt
1:30 am.
People in the city live in compact spaces built of steel and cement, which are cheap but applied and generally called 'cost-effective'. Such building materials can save a large part of the construction cost, and then cutting corners during the construction of the sound insulation structure can end the labour cost of these concrete coffins in advance. Hundreds of millions of people live in these cheap cement-filled spaces. Some spend more than half their salary on the rent of these spaces every month; some save their hard-earned money for a lifetime to exchange for a 'home'; some use the capital saved from building materials to invest in the new coffin grids construction, further driving up the price of each grid and profiting from it, and repeating this cycle.
In the independent grid, in the supposedly quiet night, people are engaged in an endless, silent, maddening spiritual struggle with everything outside the grid. The sound of people talking, driving cars, footsteps, cats, the roar of water pipes, and construction noise... Where are they located? From which coffin? The sound sources may only exist in my meaningless association? After a long time, I can't help to doubt myself: Is this the authentic voice or my hallucination? Why am I so sensitive? Could it be my daytime life is not tough enough that I can't fall asleep easily, and I have to fight endlessly with the countless irregular, invisible and intangible cryptic noises at night?
They transmit from my ears to my brain, and my brain generates more images accompanied by imagination. Everything in there is infinitely detailed, complicated, and magnified until my brain is blown up, coexisting with my body, and forming a habit that transcends my daily feelings. These habits make me more anxious, sever my reality cognition, and withdraw from my usual routine into a vacuum pocket... Oh my! How can I hold many such pockets?
...
3:17 am.
I can feel the surge of my anger more real than ever.
A strong desire to put those I hate in prison. I long to have a prison owned by me, a country where I convict and make laws according to my rules.
...
1时27分，
城市里的人住着廉价却实用，一般称其为“性价比高”的钢筋水泥建材搭建的密集空间里，这样的建材可以省去一大部分的搭建费用，然后隔音结构施工时的偷工减料又能提前结束这些水泥棺材的工时成本。数以亿计的人们住在这些水泥堆砌的廉价空间里面，有些人每个月把一半以上的工资用作这些空间的租金；有些人把攒了一辈子的辛苦血汗钱投入来买一个“家”；有些人拿着建材施工省下的资本再投入新的棺材大方格建设，哄抬每一个方格空间的价格，从中获利，如此循环……
独立的方格内，本应静谧的黑夜里，人们正与方格外界的一切做着永无休止的，安静却令人抓狂的精神斗争。人的对话声，外面的车子行驶声，脚步声，猫的叫声，水管的轰鸣声，施工声…… 它们在什么方位？来自哪一个方格？笃定的声源可能也是只存在于无意义的联想之中？时间一长不禁自我怀疑：这是真实的声音还是我的幻听？我为何如此敏感？是我白日活的太过轻松才无法倒头就睡，要与这数也数不过来的毫无规律，看不见摸不着的隐形声音在夜里做着无尽的斗争？
它们从耳畔传入我的大脑，大脑衍生出更多伴随想象的画面，一切在我的想象中都被无限的细节、复杂、放大，直到撑破大脑，与身体共存，形成超越日常感觉的习惯…… 这些习惯使人越发焦虑，割裂我的现实认知，从日常中抽离进真空的口袋……
哦我，怎么会有这么多口袋！
......
3时17分，
我能感受到我的愤怒比以往任何时候都要来的汹涌真实。
一种强烈的愿望想要把那些我讨厌的人都关进监狱，我渴望拥有一个自己的监狱，一个由我来定罪，按照我的规则制定法律的国度。
......
Text segmentation is completed by marking different time nodes, which use larger types. I think it is a good way to emphasize the pressure of insomnia.
文本的分段是以标注时间点的方式完成的，这些时间点是字体稍大的，我认为这是一个很好的强调失眠的压力的方式。
The letter I wrote to you when I passed a wakeful night, 2021, Chinese, 2233 words
The 'Witch Coming' book club in abC book fair(Art Book in China)
The 'Witch Coming' book club has launched the first publication 'Voodoo Reading Doll?' at the 6th abC Art Book Fair 2021 in Shanghai. In addition, we organized three reading activities in the 'VAI PURE!' Reading Room of Art and Feminist and a book sharing session.
“女巫来了”曾在2021年abC艺术书展（上海）首发《巫读娃娃》刊物（更多内容可移步Ins：@voodooooodoll），并在“VAI PURE!”女性主义阅读室现场组织了三场美妙的读书会活动及一场作品分享会。
I designed this poster for abC book fair
abC Book Fair
abC Book Fair
Reading Room of Art and Feminist
Reading Room of Art and Feminist
Reading Room of Art and Feminist
Reading Room of Art and Feminist
Reading Room of Art and Feminist
Reading Room of Art and Feminist
Reading Room of Art and Feminist
Reading Room of Art and Feminist
Book Sharing Session
The 'Witch Coming' book club in PSA museum (Power Station of Art)
The 'Witch Coming' book club was invited by Shanghai PSA museum to hold three online book reading activities during the 'The Dwelling Place of the Other in Me' exhibition.
“女巫来了”读书会被伤害PSA美术馆邀请，在“未有明目的言说”展览期间举办了3场线上读书会活动。
Session One: The Invisible Area
2/25/2022 20:30-22:30
Hosts: jiechen, yy?, dan0dan0
Focusing on the "restricted" and "unrestricted", we have selected more texts that reveal the plight of women in East Asia. This issue will discuss the various difficulties of women that are invisible in society.
* The 'invisible area' comes from Chizuko Ueno: 'This is the model I mentioned in my book Patriarchy System and Capitalism. Adult men occupy a 'market' sphere, and behind it is an invisible area that includes women, children and the elderly, that is 'the family".
📔 Reading list:
I am Fan Yusu - Fan Yusu (China)
Market Street - Xiao Hong (China)
I am Liu Xiaoyang - Chinese TV program Half the Sky (CCTV-10, China)
Understanding Feminism - Chizuko Ueno (Japan)
A Lone Room - Kyung-Sook Shin (South Korea)
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf (UK)
Session Two: A War of One's Own
2/26/2022 20:00-22:00
Hosts: corodeco, xindi, yy?
Women's emotional experience is often regarded as the most common theme in writing and is labelled 'irrational'. When we write about emotions or bodies, can we freely confess? This issue will discuss the objectified female desire in the text.
* 'A War of One's Own' comes from Lin Bai: A War of One's Own.
📔 Reading list:
Abstract Sex - Luciana Parisi (UK)
- Lin Bai (China)
Session Three: Bag for the Seeds
3/6/2022 20:00-22:00
Hosts: jiechen, xindi, yy?, dan0dan0, zhengfa
This session will bring the neglected female voice into fictional/sci-fi text, how the imagination of female perspective breaks away from patriarchal narratives, enters a broader field, and expands through reading: how to use imagination as an active force, return to our life and practice.
* 'The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction' comes from Ursula K. Le Guin: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.
📔 Reading list:
Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination - bell hooks (USA)
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction - Ursula K. Le Guin (USA)
Tales of the Bizarre - Olga Tokarczuk (Poland)
House of Day, House of Night - Olga Tokarczuk (Poland)
Burning Your Boats - Angela Carter (UK)
第一期：隐形领域
2022年2月25日 20:30 - 22:30
主持人：jiechen, yy?, 蛋0蛋0
围绕着“所限制的”与“无法限制的”，我们着重选择了较多展露东亚女性困境的文本，本期将讨论社会中被隐形的多种女性困境。
* “隐形领域”源自上野千鹤子：“这是我在《父权制与资本主义》这本书里提到的模式。里面有一个成年男性占据的‘市场’领域，其背后存在一个囊括了女性、儿童和老人的隐形领域，那就是‘家庭’”。
📔 阅读书单：
《我是范雨素》范雨素
《商市街》萧红
《我叫刘小样》半边天
《韩国工人》具海根（韩）
《单人房》沈京淑（韩）
《82年生的金智英》赵南柱（韩）
《从零开始的女性主义》上野千鹤子 （日）
《女性贫困》NHK（日）
《一间只属于自己的房间》弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫（英）
第二期：一个人的战争
2022年2月26日 20:00 - 22:00
主持人：corodeco, xindi, yy?
女性的情感经验常常被看作女性写作最常见的主题，并被给予“非理性”的标签，当我们书写情感或身体时，是否可以自由地自白？本期将围绕着文本讨论被客体化的女性欲望。
* “一个人的战争”源自林白《一个人的战争》。
📔 阅读书单：
Abstract Sex - Luciana Parisi (UK)
《私人生活》陈染
《一个人的战争》林白
《那不勒斯四部曲》埃莱娜·费兰特（意）
《如何抑制女性写作》乔安娜·拉斯（美）
第三期：种子的背袋
2022年3月6日 20:00 - 22:00
主持人：jiechen, xindi, yy?, 蛋0蛋0, 蒸发
“种子的背袋”将带来虚构/科幻的文本中被忽略的女性声音，女性视角的想象是如何脱离父权叙事，走入一个更广阔的领域，并通过阅读去展开：如何将想象力作为一种行动力，返回到我们的生活与实践中。
* “种子的背袋”源自Ursula K. Le Guin: The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction。
📔 阅读书单：
Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination - bell hooks (USA)
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction - Ursula K. Le Guin (USA)
《黑暗的左手》厄休拉·勒古恩（美）
《失去一切的人》厄休拉·勒古恩（美）
《怪诞故事集》 奥尔加·托卡尔丘克（波兰）
《白天的房子夜晚的房子》奥尔加·托卡尔丘克（波兰）
《焚舟纪》-安吉拉·卡特（英）
《素食者》韩江（韩）
《再生缘》陈端生
