Linlu Zhang

In my practice asemic writing is employed by using Pu’er tealeaves on different materials including paper, ceramics and metal. Asemic writing fuses text and image as a unity. It’s a way to build a connection between me and others, and it can be hard to define as the boundaries between writing and drawing become blurred. It shows not merely the extension of memory, but also the transformation of ideas and forms through this creative process. 

We naturally communicate text in an unspoken context, however, the context itself that makes this communication possible is rarely mentioned, asemic writing makes central this phenomena.

My study of Chinese calligraphy led to the notion of asemic writing and considering how these texts are often seen as image only in a western context. Through my practice of PU’ER , tea sometimes functions as

more than tea; it acts also as a mirror, reflecting Oriental context and ideology. It is more about using body and perception, a wordless open semantic form of writing: the spirit of asemic writing.

In addition to myself, I consider many artists whose practices are also based on nonsense aesthetics and has asemic concerns, principally Zhang Xu, Huaisu, Henri Michaux, Susan Hiller and Bosco Sodi who’s cross-linguistic interplay of the theoretical with the practical remains inspirational.