Slices of the shared sky stored in a book – for all to collect, play, and cherish

Hong Shu-ying’s newest book captures the essence of what we all dwell beneath – the boundless canopy of the blue, blue, sky

The sky changes every day, sparking my curiosity to gaze upward constantly. What shapes will I spot today, will the sky remain endlessly blue, or will clouds sweep in, engulfing the blues and leaving just whites for the hours to come?

Shu’s latest book i’ve never literally collects the sky. I’ve never thought of ways we could do that, considering the fact that I can’t even fly. This cosy book is essentially a transparent album featuring miniature photocards, and an oversized book belt. The miniature photos are free from fixtures, so readers can easily move them around, rearrange them, take them out and paste them on the wall – whatever you want really.

It’s not a common sighting where books come in the form of a photo album. Conventionally, the book form we all know growing up is one that’s made of paper. i’ve never then challenges this acquired knowledge. Though, that’s not to say I haven’t seen such an execution before – the last I saw of such a form was a limited edition run by Filipino artist MM Yu.

i’ve never was launched at this year’s Singapore Art Book Fair, as part of Other People’s Books – a collective I’m honoured to be a part of as well. The small run sold out during the fair, but more is in the making. Before the new batch is out, I wanted to dive deeper into this book of Shu’s.

i’ve never (met yoko ono, nor have i touched the sky 天明日月奣)
Artist: Hong Shu-ying
Miniature photocards, transparent folder and oversized book belt
100 × 72 mm (closed)

“The images in the book are taken from photo documentation of Sky TV (1966–2007) and TV to See the Sky (2015) by Yoko Ono.”

Which came first: The idea of collecting images of the sky, or the encounter with Yoko Ono’s Sky TV (1966–2007) and TV to See the Sky (2021)? 

Wow, I can’t remember, haha. I think I saw Sky TV first but my initial thoughts were more about how both Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik used CCTVs in poetic yet beautifully critical ways. Of course, Yoko Ono’s fascination with the sky is also very touching to me. On and off, I also wanted to make something about sky photography as a way to play with this photography troupe. 

Then, for two years or so, I really wanted to make a sticker book as an art book. I like how we used to collect these little stickers and trade them with friends. Or how stickers were given out as little badges of honour by teachers and doctors. 

So when I found out about TV to See the Sky, I thought it could be something. There was something quite funny and sad about institutions spending so much resources to coordinate a mediated way of looking at the same sky together. And also something very earnest about it – this act of looking at the sky reminds me of this Chinese poem about separation and longing. In it, Su Shi says “人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全。”, that we have our gatherings and partings just like the moon waxes and wanes, such is the ancient truth. We are only humans and pathetic fallacy will always be something that shows how naive we are. To be in the middle of a global pandemic and multiple wars, but still be able to look at the skies together through Zoom (something for work and keeping the Capitalistic momentum), felt defiant but weakly so like the last moments of The Little Match Girl. There are so many layered associations I can link to this work or gesture, and I thought that the porosity of these series of sky images would be fascinating to collect.

In this very specific instance, sky photography was open and in a way I appreciated it. The timelessness of it is also a helpless reminder of how history is cyclical. So long as we are under the same sky, we inherit the same impulses and make the same decisions.

Yeah, I guess there are many ways to collect images of, in this case, the sky. Could you elaborate on why you chose the format of having tiny photos slotted in a transparent album? How did you envision this format influencing people's first impressions and experiences as they flip through the book?

The transparent album is an album designed specifically for collecting playing cards! 

I really wanted to make this a sticker book, but something felt off about having the ‘skies’ affixed and no longer movable. Layering the skies was also nice, like how day after day time passes, and a quiet reminder that these are just images of the sky. I wanted to do a photo album since it had ‘transparent pages’ and could allow the images to be arranged and traded freely. It was only after chatting with some friends that I thought about making the images even smaller. 

Having the images be tiny and on thicker paper made them easier to handle. I wanted them to feel like little objects, like kuti kuti almost – a game that we now longer play, but are still pieces of plastic people look at, collect, or trade. 

I wanted people to feel that the book is fun and approachable! That’s also why the images are made “hardy” and most of the materials used in the book are more stationery-like. It should be something that catches the viewer's eyes, yet not too precious, so when the images occasionally fall within the transparent pockets, it should feel funny not intimidating.

What role do you see this book playing in someone's everyday life?

I hope that people will sit with this book once in a while and rearrange the images. Or that they will bring it to a friends’ new home and leave a piece of sky in the corner of their window. I wanted it to be easy to sit with this book – perhaps, you can daydream or chat with your friends while flipping through the pages and slotting in the skies.

I guess it’s like a quiet diary and trinket box of sorts.

And lastly, I assume the sky has had a significant impact in your life for you to choose it as an object worth ‘collecting’. Can you share more about what the sky means to you?

Actually my relationship with the sky has always been somewhat linked to art.

My first distinctive memory of the sky was when I used to draw a lot… Like the sun-on-the-corner-of-the-paper type of drawing. I remember I was lazy (still am) and wanted to spend less effort colouring, so I drew clouds and coloured them blue while leaving the sky white. My kindergarten teacher was not impressed and forced me to make corrections for those drawings. It was quite perplexing because I remember thinking that the sky and clouds were ‘the same’ and were patterns rather than a bunch of vapour in the air. It wasn’t until I saw the cloud-shaping machine on Doraemon that I understood that the sky was not a huge surface but a space, and why my teacher insisted that the sky had to be blue and the clouds white.

Later on, I began to take photos and cloud/sky photography was one of the staple troupes. It was quite fascinating and I remember taking photos for my friend’s Instagram account with the hashtag #marshmallowsky. Then, somewhere along the way, I started to feel cloud photography was too mainstream, struggling with how this troupe has been over-exposed and overdone. Till today, I remain conflicted as to what to feel about Alfred Stieglitz’s work, though they are beautiful.

Shu’s book i’ve never is available for preorder via her DMs.