Shanzhai Lyric: Endless Garment

A poetry book repurposes the found nonsense language of mass-produced T-shirts manufactured in China

Drawn from a decade-long archival project by the artist collective Shanzhai Lyric, this book revels in and reveals the readymade lyricism of fast fashion, transforming the language of T-shirts into poetry. Shanzhai is the Chinese word for counterfeit or copy. The term, literally meaning "mountain hamlet," derives from a Song Dynasty tale about rebel bandits who stockpile goods stolen from the imperial center to share with people on its margins, finding new ways to relate to property, authorship and each other. Transcribing hundreds of mass-produced garments manufactured in China and circulating around the world, Endless Garment stitches together the many aphorisms, mistranslations, marketing slogans and textual fragments that adorn garments into a single unfolding poem.