Details:
Saddle-stitch booklet
8.5 x 11 inches page size, 28 pages
Premium color printed on 100# matte paper
Captions in English and Mandarin
In-store pick up only
Description:
Maldives is the first installment of a multimedia graphic novel reimagining the immigrant experience as a phantasmagoric adult fable. Set between a subtropical city of absence and a foreign land founded on its appetite for exoticism, the story follows Ma’er—a boy pressured to become a vessel for his parents’ unfulfilled desires—as he embarks on a surreal coming-of-age journey.
This debut booklet collects the first six pairs of digital illustrations and narrative texts featured in Li Yao’s solo exhibition at the Chinese American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC) in March 2026. Fusing Dreamcore aesthetics with Y2K-era Guangzhou, the project employs multilingual serial-picture narration to dismantle the perfect minority myth of assimilation and explore the radical reclamation of a fragmented cultural identity.
Details:
Saddle-stitch booklet
8.5 x 11 inches page size, 28 pages
Premium color printed on 100# matte paper
Captions in English and Mandarin
In-store pick up only
Description:
Maldives is the first installment of a multimedia graphic novel reimagining the immigrant experience as a phantasmagoric adult fable. Set between a subtropical city of absence and a foreign land founded on its appetite for exoticism, the story follows Ma’er—a boy pressured to become a vessel for his parents’ unfulfilled desires—as he embarks on a surreal coming-of-age journey.
This debut booklet collects the first six pairs of digital illustrations and narrative texts featured in Li Yao’s solo exhibition at the Chinese American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC) in March 2026. Fusing Dreamcore aesthetics with Y2K-era Guangzhou, the project employs multilingual serial-picture narration to dismantle the perfect minority myth of assimilation and explore the radical reclamation of a fragmented cultural identity.
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