© Laurence Kesterson, NBCnews
I have been making one-of-a-kind collapsible artist’s books that combine my photography with pop-up paper engineering since 2003.
Pop-up and flap books originally illustrated ideas about astronomy, fortune telling, navigation, anatomy of the body, and other scientific principles.
This history prompted me to construct my own books reflecting ideas on how ourselves relate to society today.
Growing up (in New Jersey), I was not proud of my Chinese heritage. After college graduation, I went to my mother's birthplace in Yunnan Province in Southwest China to teach English. Literally translated as “South of the Clouds,” Yunnan is China’s most southwestern Province, sharing borders with Tibet, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. With snow-capped mountains to the Northwest and tropical rainforests to the South, Yunnan is rich in natural resources and has the largest diversity of plant life in China. This diversity extends it its population as well. I taught at the Yunnan Nationalities University in the capital of Kunming. While in Yunnan I discovered that my great-grandfather had not only helped establish the university where I was teaching, but was a member of the powerful black Yi tribe,
and governor and general of Yunnan during the transitional years of WWII. I stayed in Yunnan for three years; it was these experiences that helped me find
a new sense of pride and identity and encouraged me to pursue a profession as a photographer and artist.
In 2008, with the help of a Fulbright fellowship, I traveled once again to Yunnan, specifically to photograph for a pop-up book of the 25 ethnic minority groups that reside there. 25 of the 55 minority tribes of China reside in Yunnan and comprise less than 9% of the nation’s population, with the Han representing the majority. Many people inside China and most people outside are unaware of this cultural richness. While I am directly unable to help these groups preserve their identity and ways of living, I use my skills as an artist to spread knowledge and provide just a brief portrait of their existence.
In 2014, with the help of a Leeway Transformation Award and the Swatch Art Peace Hotel residency in Shanghai, I returned to China to extend my project outside of Yunnan Province. For 6 months, I traveled between Shanghai and select minority areas in Inner Mongolia, Northwest Xinjiang Province, Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Zhejiang Provinces. Inspiration from recent trips of learning traditional craft in India, Morocco, and Kyrgyzstan are incorporated into newer work.
Traveling through the mountainous Yi landscape, an old Yi man told me,
“Although an eagle flies far into the distance, its wings will fold back. For the Yi, the ultimate goal of life is to find the path of your ancestors.”
With pop-up books, I want to eliminate the boundaries between people, the book, installation, photography, craft, sculpture…