The exhibition »Catherine Griffiths: SOLO IN [ ] SPACE«, curated and produced by Duan Zhihua, the Founding Partner and Design Principal of Pocca, was on view at The Space Gallery in Shanghai in October 2019, and was the first retrospective of internationally renowned New Zealand artist, typographer and designer Catherine Griffiths in China. As an exhibition that focuses on the designer's design process rather than the outcome, the rich archive of works, texts, and images are complemented by a contextualized and narrative space for visitors to read. It has also brought this famous designer, who is on the "edge of the world", into the view of more Chinese audiences and brought a different perspective of reference to the field of typography in China.
After two years of fermentation and months of intense editing and design work since the end of the exhibition, and on the second anniversary of the exhibition, we launched this post-exhibition book with a title »Catherine Griffiths: SOLO IN [ ] SPACE« – A documentation which was curated, edited and designed by exhibition curator Zhihua Duan and artist Catherine Griffiths together. We see this print as an extension of a paper version of the exhibition and a further expansion of the “design process” we focus on in the exhibition.
The entire archive includes a selection of Catherine's past works, as well as a record of her design practice and the curatorial process. Presented in 220 pages in both Chinese and English, the archive contains over 250 drawings and over 50,000 words [from Leonardo Sonnoli (renowned Italian designer), Liza Enebeis (Creative Director of Denbigh Design, The Netherlands), Masayoshi Kodaira (renowned Japanese designer and Art Director of FLAME inc.), Scarlett Xin Meng (Founder and Creative Director of the Related Department and Anastasia Genkina (Russian book designer) have written special texts for the exhibition, as well as four selected interviews and published articles that explain Catherine's design philosophy]. In this way, the exhibition's curatorial process and Catherine's reflections on typography over three decades of design practice are presented in detail.
