警鈴 SIRENS

A siren is a woman and also an alarm. What might happen if the goal were to provoke sirens rather than to silence them? To hear their singing as celebrating those acts of redistribution so often criminalized as theft or smuggling or counterfeit? This mini-publication assembles cacophonous and suprasensical shanzhai poems gleaned from T-shirts as a form of siren song. 

Created on the occasion of the exhibition “SIREN (some poetics),” curated by Quinn Latimer at Amant, New York City, September 15, 2022 – March 5, 2023. 

Shanzhai Lyric is a poetic research unit and roving archive est. 2015, currently operating out of the basement of Canal Projects. They are dedicated to collecting and researching shanzhai garments made in China, which often bear a poetic nonstandard text: shanzhai lyrics.