Babylon Schwabylon - Shanzhai Lyric

The construction of the Tower of Babel was the first great act of defiance in ancient Babylon, a city of excess and corruption where the sins of its citizens led to its destruction. When the people began building a tower to heaven, God was so scared of what they might accomplish when united in shared language and purpose, that He cursed them with a confusion of tongues.

The experimental multi-lingual writings so common on shanzhai (the Chinese word for counterfeit) garments echo the cacophony of Babel. On September 8th and 10th, 2023, Shanzhai Lyric led a performative walking tour, bringing their inquiry into co-authored landscapes and the nonsense of property to Munich’s new upscale development: Schwabinger Tor, former site of surreal shopping and leisure complex, Schwabylon. The walk wove together research into counterfeit poetics,theft as redistribution, and the area’s history as a failed vision of postmodern utopia.

Ruine Muenchen, 2024.
Softcover 
300 x 110mm