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Pieces of You Yi Zhou’s Body Memorabilia by Kipp Whittaker
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eijing is a transient place. You meet people of all shapes and sizes from around the world and then inevitably say goodbye forever. Why not keep a piece of these special acquaintances without literally amputating your favorite parts and horribly disfiguring your close friends? This this is exactly the service Yi Zhou and her Body Memory project provides. Yi Zhou is a designer, who after finishing up her studies at St. Martin’s College in the UK returned to her home in Beijing to get involved with the rapidly expanding design scene here. It was during these first couple of months that she developed the idea behind this conceptual mobilized clinic, and has since been featured and exhibited in
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publications and galleries across the city. Body Memory draws upon her hypothesis that the human body is capable of remembering through textures, sounds, and shapes, the details of people and things we encounter in our lives. The objects and accessories she creates are meant to act as a detailed visual reproduction of a physical attribute bound in plaster. It is a piece of yourself ready to be distributed to your friends and family. It is quite the cute and chic concept. You can contact Yi Zhou through email, and she will set you up with an appointment at an appropriate venue. She will arrive acting doctorly, wearing operating room scrubs, a stethoscope, possibly a small flock of nurses, and
January 2015