Fu, Colette

A digital archive of Asian/Asian American contemporary art history

Female

"I make one-of-a-kind collapsible artist’s books that combine my photography with pop-up paper engineering. 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 our selves relate to society today. [...]

My pop-ups are a way for me to speak and inform; the real and implied motion in the pop-ups link to a temporal element and an inevitable corollary is to awe and unsettle. Constructing pop-ups allows me to combine intuitive design and technical acuity with my love of traveling as I try to understand the world around me. With pop-up books I want to eliminate the boundaries between book, installation, photography, craft and sculpture."

Colette Fu, Artist Statement, 2015

"Fu’s initial pop-up work was more abstract, with underlying themes of consumerism and the body in a modern world of excess. But since 2008 her personal focus has been on work about the lives of the minorities of China, not far removed from her previous work. Colette’s recent series, entitled We Are Tiger Dragon People represents an interactive 3D glimpse into China's stunning human diversity of 25 officially recognized ethnic minority groups that reside in Yunnan Province. Accompanying text introduces traditions, folklore and other culturally unique examples of their ways of living. Fu discovered that her own personal anxiety was part lack of respecting and relating to any cultural identity. As her artwork has evolved, she uses it to promote respect, love, and the beauty of diversity and recently has extended her work to other minority communities. Recognition and celebration of diversity in others and ourselves leads us to stronger identity and involvement with the world."

Colette Fu, Artist Biography, 2015