Living Hyphen is 🤩 to partner with designer, artist, and educator Jason Li to bring you this one-of-a-kind workshop. Together, we'll delve into the parallel lives of emoji and written Chinese, and explore why any act of translation, no matter how small, is unavoidably political.
In part one of this workshop, we will dive into Jason’s work The Hanmoji Handbook: Your Guide to the Chinese Language Through Emoji. We will work through a half educational workbook, half colouring book to learn about the histories of emoji and Chinese, and discover a new way of using emoji to memorize Chinese characters 📝🎨🧠. Jason will also discuss some of the critical choices he and his co-authors, An Xiao Mina and Jennifer 8. Lee, made in the creation of the book.
In part two of this workshop, we will play with different ways 🤹🏼♀️writing whilst borrowing and adapting words from our non-English speaking ancestral cultures. There’s no one way to translate an idea, but every choice in translation we make can drastically affect the way our story feels and the place that we situate our readers.
No Chinese reading, writing, or speaking experience necessary. Experience with crafting messages with emoji, however, is required – though we hope that this is but a 🤏🏽 small 🤏🏽inconvenience.
Our workshop includes parts where you will type, parts where you will write and parts where you will cut, colour, and glue. Please bring your smartphone, a pen, some colour pencils (or markers or crayons). Other art supplies will also be available 🖋️🎨✂️.
About Your Facilitator: Jason Li
Jason Li (he/him) is an independent designer, artist and educator. His practice revolves around promulgating bottom-up narratives, exploring networked technology and helping people live safely on the internet. He is a co-author of the Hanmoji Handbook, an editor at Paradise Systems, and a member of Zine Coop.
Find out more about him at byjasonli.com and about his book at hanmoji.org. You are also duly invited to follow his work on Instagram and Mastodon.
Location
130 Spadina Avenue | Suite 702
ABOUT FINANCIAL ACCESSIBILITY
At Living Hyphen, we strive to make all our initiatives financially sustainable while also maintaining artistic independence and ensuring accessibility for our community. Our creative workshops will always have a few subsidized pricing options for those experiencing financial hardship.